


Oculus

by areyouarealmonster



Series: Oculus [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Background Cisco Ramon/Lisa Snart, M/M, Slow Burn, coldatom, diverges at the season break, kind of, leonard snart has a lot of feelings, looping in bits and pieces of flash s3 when it's convenient, s1 canon compliant, there's going to be a lot of angst, there's some comfort in my hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 20:13:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7984681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyouarealmonster/pseuds/areyouarealmonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard Snart wakes up in Star City after the explosion that destroyed the Time Master's structure in the Vanishing Point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Awakening

Leonard Snart wakes up in hell.

 

At least, hell is what it feels like to him. He’s not sure if his entire body is on fire or if it’s just his nerve endings misfiring, but it’s not like he can open his eyes or move his arms to check. And his head – his head hurts most of all.

 

At first he thinks it’s his scalp, itching with a fierceness that feels like flames. Then he feels it at his temples, pulsing and pounding at a slightly harsher tempo than the waves of pain shooting through the rest of his body. Finally, he realizes that it’s behind his eyes, or maybe in front of his eyes, and it’s not quite pain in the way he’s used to pain. That is, it’s not physical.

 

It’s not a cut, or a bruise, or even a burn. Those pains, he would understand. He would be able to tamp them down enough to function again. He can’t, with this, and he thinks he might be screaming.

 

He doesn’t know how long it lasts, only that it seems to last forever. And always the flash, flash, _flash_ of pain. There’s no gap between consciousness and unconsciousness, and he doesn’t know if he’s one or the other or both or neither. Somewhere, deep down, he knows he’s dead. Or at least, that he should be dead. If he believed in an afterlife, he would believe that hell is where he belongs. And the pain continues on.

 

Then, suddenly, a new sharp pain hits the side of his neck, and everything goes dark.

 

Slowly, slowly, ever so _fucking slowly_ , his senses begin to come back to him. He smells sterility, tastes the tang of metal in his mouth, hears murmurs of electricity and voices. And all around him, he feels – he’s not sure. Threads? He knows the cliché—that your whole life flashes before your eyes when you die—but he’s never heard anything about flashes of anyone else’s life.

 

But that has to be what he’s seeing. He catches flashes (threads, lifelines) of the people he figures out are around him – Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, Harrison Wells. He sees Barry most of all, mangled threads and guilt, guilt, guilt masquerading as happiness. He focuses on Barry’s history (future?) like a lifeline, picks out bits and pieces, working out the timeline, all of the timelines, and it clicks.

 

Leonard Snart wakes up in S.T.A.R. Labs, finally, fully wakes up.

 

Opening his eyes is definitely a mistake, he realizes, as he is overwhelmed by images flashing across his vision, ghosts of everything that has happened in this lab, and of everything yet to happen.

 

“Hey guys, he’s awake!” Cisco shouts, and Snart hears the running footsteps of the others. He’s slammed his eyes shut, but he can still sense everyone around him. He feels hands (Caitlin’s) checking his pulse, feeling his skin, taking his temperature (he sees her life, sharper and in focus with her hands on his skin) and he keeps his eyes forced shut.

 

Caitlin asks question after question, a barrage of noise, and he answers as best as he can. _What’s your name?_ Leonard Snart. _What year is it_? No idea. _Where are you?_ S.T.A.R. Labs. _Who am I?_ Caitlin Snow. _What happened to you?_ Not sure yet. _Why won’t you open your eyes?_ It hurts. _What hurts?_ The lights, the… _The what?_ The images. _What images?_ Can I have my goggles? _What images?_ Goggles. Where are they? _What images, Snart?_

 

“Caitlin, for god’s sake, give him some air,” Cisco says, and Snart feels a familiar object being pushed into his hand. His goggles, finally. He puts them on and attempts opening his eyes again. The images still flash, they’re still blinding, but the goggles help enough that he’s able to keep his eyes open. He takes in the familiar sight of the lab, noting inconsistencies (the room is different than he remembers, but only barely, as though someone moved the furniture half an inch to the left as a very bad prank), and judging the expressions of Team Flash looming over him.

 

“So, uh, what year _is_ it?”

 

“It’s 2016, Mr. Snart,” Harry (they call him Harry now, this new Dr. Wells) says, “December 17th to be precise.”

 

“And how long have I been _here_?”

 

“Um…” Cisco looks nervous, worried.

 

“How. Long.”

 

It’s Harry who responds, the rest of Team Flash looking around like they’d rather be anywhere else. “Since the end of May. We weren’t sure you’d ever wake up, but here we are.”

 

Almost seven months. Snart expects to feel shock but all he feels is emptiness. “Does, uh, anyone else know I’m here?” The expressions on their faces tell him that nobody does. Anger starts to bubble up, but he pushes it down. “Did _any_ of you think to tell my _sister_?” Again, awkward glances tell him everything he needs to know.

 

That’s it, for him. He’s done. He can move (slowly), walk (well enough), and so he’s out. He shrugs off all hands, all comments, all pleas to stay as he pulls on his jacket (the jacket he was wearing when he died, he notes), snags his cold gun from the table and walks out the door.

 

Leonard makes it to the edge of the parking lot before he collapses and Barry drags him back in.

 

He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want to be surrounded by these mother hens, clucking and poking at him. He stays, against his better judgement, but he makes them call his sister.

 

Lisa’s out of town on a job but she comes running. Finally, something Leonard can latch on to that makes him feel like himself. She doesn’t ask him why he won’t take his goggles off. He can tell that she knows something’s up. But she also knows him well enough not to prod (not like Team Flash), that he’ll tell her when he’s ready, when he knows what the hell has happened to him. She comes and goes, checking in on him enough to keep updated, leaving him alone enough to breathe. Or, he would be able to breathe if the members of Team Flash didn’t _hover_ so damn much.

 

Caitlin runs test after test after test, Cisco asks him questions for hours on end, Harry watches and makes suggestions, and Barry zooms around aimlessly. Snart sits in the middle of the chaos, and watches their lives unfold around him. He doesn’t tell them everything about the images, only enough to satisfy them (he thinks, he hopes), but he works in silence on picking out specifics from the noise.

 

He watches Caitlin fall in love with Ronnie as she draws his blood, can see the steps she took towards this Jay Garrick person (dear god he _hates_ Jay Garrick from everything he sees, wants to rip the man’s throat out even before he puts two and two together about Zoom), watches her life unfold from birth until now.

 

He learns more about Cisco than he ever wanted to (not that you’ll hear him complaining) as Cisco attempts to keep him company with movie nights and popcorn and beers. He can’t read thoughts, exactly, but he’s getting better at following paths never taken, different choices taking people different places. He’s pretty sure Cisco has a major costume kink. He’s absolutely positive that Cisco isn’t straight, but he’s not about to out him. He enjoys movie nights, not that you’ll ever hear him say it. At least Cisco just sits and lets him be (and has taken to inviting Lisa to movie nights, so Snart gets to spend more time with his sister).

 

Harry is a straight line, but Snart still sees the ghosts of all the other men who were Wells: the dead man who never made it this far and the man who wasn’t Wells at all, and he can feel the other Earth bleeding through Harry’s skin.

 

Barry Allen gives him a headache, every time. He’s glad Barry’s always off saving the world, off doing whatever Barry Allen does in his down time (caffeine and chemistry and making eyes at Iris, apparently) because the threads of his life pile on top of each other and build up and Snart has to switch from his low-key sunglasses that he’s taken to wearing back to his goggles whenever Barry’s around to keep the headaches to a minimum.

 

He knows that Barry regrets resetting the timeline, every timeline he reset, and doesn’t regret it at the same time. Barry flip-flops and changes his mind and _almost_ goes back again and again and Snart is _so close_ to just blasting him with his cold gun and calling it a day. If, you know, it wouldn’t cause the rest of Team Flash to murder him in retaliation.

 

He finds that one of the perks of his newfound skill (gift? curse?) is that, instead of actually killing Barry Allen, he can watch the scene unfold in front of his very eyes. It’s _almost_ enough.

 

He can’t actually hold it against Barry, though, as much as he wants to. He’s been putting the pieces together, working through the timeline, and he realizes that he appeared in Central City on the same day Barry reset the timeline, this time. Team Flash didn’t find him until a few days later (something about screams coming from an abandoned warehouse), but he connects the dots and figures out that Barry was an anchor.

 

Once he works that out, it’s hard to avoid the truth of the matter. He knows exactly what happened, has known since he woke up on fire, but knowing and admitting are two very different things.

 

Two events happened though, to bring him back here, _alive_. The second, that was Barry. The first, well, the Oculus needed to go somewhere, didn’t it?

 

He’s still parsing through what it means, that he _is_ the Oculus. He’s still not sure if it’s parasitic, or symbiotic, or if it’s just using him as a channel and lurking at the fringes of his subconscious. Or maybe it’s just taken a new form and that’s him, now.

 

All he knows is that he’s never truly going to be Captain Cold again, no matter how hard he latches on to his cold gun (he can still use it even if he’s something new, something different now, right?).

 

Leonard Snart died, and Leonard Snart came back to life. Somehow, he can sense that he was always headed here. The Oculus showed Raymond’s death to the captain, but somehow it knew that the only way this ended was with Leonard holding down the lever. Every path, every decision, every time the Time Bastards screwed with the timeline, it was all leading _here_.

 

He knows all that. He just doesn’t know why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Cisco's Guide to Enjoying the Holidays](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8788864) takes place at the end of this chapter, if you want to take a quick Goldenvibe break.


	2. An Attempt, Doomed to Fail

Back on the Waverider, Ray Palmer tries to step into Snart’s shoes. He tries to wrap himself in ice the same way he wraps one of Snart’s extra jackets around him, the way his fingers wrapped around the cold gun when Mick silently handed it to him, after.

 

He does a bad job of it, of course. He’s too…perky to truly embody Captain Cold, but he tries. Mick gave him the cold gun and so he uses it like a lifeline. He takes it apart, learns it from the bottom up, and replicates and integrates the tech into his ATOM suit. He puts the cold gun up on his wall like fine art.

 

He feels like he’s running. It never felt that way before; he always was going toward something. Now, he knows he has to keep moving because stopping means having to acknowledge the hole in his heart, and he’d rather pretend that it’s not there.

 

Ray doesn’t understand how he didn’t see it before – that Snart had so quietly become such a big part of his life. But he’d slotted in so neatly that Ray didn’t even notice until it was too late. The snide comments and the solid, steady presence seeped their way into his heart. So he does what he knows he shouldn’t do: he pushes down his feelings and wears Snart’s jacket like it’s going to make him feel as cold inside as Snart seemed on the outside. He knows better, and he does it anyway. With Kendra gone too, there’s no one on the Waverider he can talk to, no one he can really feel at home with.

 

He becomes vicious. He pulls back. He spars with Sara and works out his frustration by getting his ass kicked again and again and again until even she decides that they need to stop. He tries to spar with Mick, but just gets laughed at. So he works out when he’s not sparring with Sara, and tinkers with his suit.

 

He knows he’s self-destructing, but he can’t bring himself to stop. Everyone else on the ship is too wrapped up in their own lives to pull him back from the edge: Mick doesn’t do feelings and doesn’t really notice that Ray is more of a disaster than normal, Jax and Stein just argue in their good-natured-but-still-arguing way, and Rip and Sara seem to be increasingly wrapped up in each other. They take on a few more crew members, temporarily, but he’s so distant from himself at this point that nobody gets close enough to know that he’s not okay.

 

Because as much as he tries to build up a shroud of ice to lay over his shoulders, there’s still a hole in his heart. He loved Kendra, truly, wholly loved her. But, well, the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that he was coaxed into it. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real, but if Stein hadn’t prodded him to consider her in a romantic way, he thinks he would’ve…gone in a different direction.

 

Ray’s problem is that he falls in love with everyone. He’s like a puppy, he knows this. If he spends enough time with someone and enjoys their company, he’s probably going to love them in one way or another. And, well, he’s never been exclusively attracted to women, even if he’s mostly dated women in the past. He just absolutely loves being in love, and it’s burning him up inside that he didn’t get to love Leonard.

 

He was on his way to it before Kendra, and then again in the short time they had after Kendra. Ray wishes it had hit him earlier, because then they maybe would’ve had a short bit of time together. Or maybe they wouldn’t have, since Snart seemed to have moved on to Sara. Well, Ray thinks it was moving on. Maybe it’s just another thing he’s imagining, but it seems to him that the longer he dated Kendra, the quieter Snart got around him. He was practically silent when they were in Salvation, only saying a few snarky things to him and then retreating to the edges of the room. Ray remembers the feeling, though, of trusting Snart to keep him alive when he was facing down Jeb Stillwater and his cronies. He trusted him with everything, but he wishes that he’d seen it sooner.

 

The worst part of it is, Ray _wants_ to fall in love with someone new. He aches for it. But…he just can’t let go of Leonard.

 

It doesn’t help that he’s started to see Snart in his dreams.


	3. Over Drinks

Team Flash sets Snart up with a room in S.T.A.R. Labs, and he spends a lot of his time wandering the halls, thinking and watching events play out like movies. He watches the particle accelerator explode, over and over and over again, finds the spot where Stein and Ronnie merged and became Firestorm, slows it down and watches them change down to their very atoms.

 

He experiments, pulls on strings of choices never made and follows them until they leave the lab. He watches words unsaid, touches aborted, kisses that never happened. He watches failed experiments become successes under his hands and successful experiments blow up in his face. Sometimes he loops the same thread over and over again, picks out the turning points, and follows each one to the end.

 

Cisco finds him one night, in a random hallway, following a random string in circles, pulling on it with his hands until it snaps back to actuality. Leonard expects questions like: _why are you making weird gestures with your hands while standing in the middle of the hallway, Snart?_ Cisco just asks if he wants to watch a movie.

 

Leonard hasn’t left the lab since he collapsed at the edge of the property. He thinks that maybe it’s time to get back into the world, or at least give it a go. So he suggests it.

 

“Wait. You wanna, like, go grab a drink?” The kid appears dumbfounded.

 

“That is generally what people do when they go to bars, Cisco.”

 

“But with, like, me?”

 

Snart rolls his eyes. “Well, you are the only one awake and standing here, so yes.”

 

“Uh, okay, dude. Sure. Before we go, though, I have something for you. Come with me!” Snart follows in the wake of Cisco’s life, images brighter than usual without his sunglasses. He doesn’t usually need them, wandering alone around the echoing halls at night, and he’s surprised to find that he is better at tuning out the visual noise than he thought.

 

They arrive at Cisco’s workroom, and Leonard leans against the doorframe while Cisco rummages around and finally comes out with a pair of very normal-looking thick-rimmed black glasses.

 

“You know, my eyesight is fine,” he says with a smirk.

 

Cisco seems to enjoy sighing dramatically at Snart. “They’re not prescription, obviously, dude. I made them to filter out the wavelength of your vision thingies. Try ‘em on.”

 

Leonard stops himself from mentioning that they’re time echoes, since he’s pretty sure Cisco could tell him more scientific terms for what he sees (and honestly he made up the phrase ‘time echoes’) and reluctantly puts on the glasses.

 

“Hm.”

 

“Do they work? Do they help? You gotta give me somethin’, man.”

 

Snart really enjoys fucking with Cisco. The glasses work amazingly, they filter out enough of the images that he thinks he’s only going to be slightly twitchy in a crowd, but he calculates how long he can pause dramatically before Cisco yells at him.

 

“They’re great, kid. Now let’s go.”

 

“Okay, I know I said yes, but it’s like midnight, and I love Central City but its’ nightlife leaves something to be desired.”

 

Snart smirks. “That’s because you go to _boring_ places.”

 

“Uh-oh.”

 

Leonard practically pulls Cisco out the front door. He inhales the cool night air, taking in the outside world (not that he hasn’t been on the roof, not that he hasn’t walked outside, but he feels almost free and it’s astounding), before he realizes that he has no method of transportation.

 

“Hey, kid, do you have a car?”

 

“Of course I have a car!” Cisco walks over to a tiny, beat-up, ancient car. Snart stops, crosses his arms, and raises an eyebrow.

 

“I’d rather walk.”

 

“Don’t be a baby, get in.”

 

Snart sighs dramatically, but stuffs his long limbs into the compact car. He directs Cisco to his favorite dive bar that’s close enough to get back to the lab easily but far enough away that he feels separated from his current situation of being constantly under a microscope. As they pass by people on the streets (and their ghosts), Snart feels a twinge at the corner of his eyes: not quite the beginning of a headache, more like a fog rolling in. He resolutely pushes it aside as they pull up to the sign-less purple door.

 

“This is a bar?”

 

“Yeah, kid, it’s a bar. Stop whining.”

 

They stroll in, the smoky darkness of the bar a familiar feel. His head starts to pound in sync with the music coming through the shitty sound system, and the fog in his head rises to match the cigar and cigarette smoke clogging up the air, but he’s determined to stick it out for at least one drink. “Oh, and I don’t have any money, so you’re buying, kid.” Cisco sputters, but Snart drags him up to the bar, grinning resolutely.

 

“Bourbon, neat.”

 

“Uh, I’ll just have a beer.” Cisco hands over his card, rolling his eyes at Snart (but there’s no heat behind it). Snart shakes his head at Cisco when the bartender asks if they’ll be opening a tab. He’ll barely make it through one drink, he can feel it.

 

The images are stacking up, even with the tech in his new glasses. There are too many people in this bar, and apparently seven people besides him and Cisco is too many. But it’s seven people he doesn’t know, seven people whose lifelines aren’t now ingrained in him. As annoying as Barry is to be around, at least Snart’s got a feel for his timeline. He’s surrounded by seven new people, seven new lives, seven new headaches. He sips his drink, listens to Cisco ramble on about…oh shit, he’s talking about feelings. That’s gonna help Snart’s headache.

 

“So, like, I don’t know man, would you kill me if I started dating your sister?”

 

“You’re not already dating?” Snart raises an eyebrow at Cisco’s shocked face. He sighs, and figures he may as well have this discussion over drinks. “Listen, kid. Lisa’s taste in the past has been…closer to Mick than you. While it’s true that people like Mick are, well, my people, at least I’m not going to worry about you beating her or generally treating her like crap. So, yeah, if Lisa wants to be dating you, at least she’s with someone I…” Shit, he was about to say trust. “Someone I know.”

 

Cisco asks him a few more times, in a few different ways, if he’s alright with it, and Snart is running out of ways to say yes to a question this stupid. Even if he didn’t approve, Lisa was Lisa and she was going to date who she wanted, regardless of whether Leonard approved or not. Not that he’d try to stop her from doing anything she wanted to do. She could make her own decisions, and he would be there to help her if any of them ended badly.

 

Snart’s head is pounding more insistently, and he feels as though every word he is able to get out of his mouth is a goddamn miracle with the wall of fog that’s settled resolutely between his eyes. He barely keeps up with the conversation, and Cisco starts to look at him like he’s worried. All of a sudden, nausea hits him like a brick to the face, and he bolts. Cisco hurries after him, catching up just in time to see Snart lose the contents of his stomach into a storm drain. “Fuck.”

 

“Yo, dude, are you okay?”

 

“Do I fucking look okay?”

 

“Woah, okay, um, can I get you anything?”

 

“Let’s just…head back.”

 

Leonard has to lean on Cisco during the short walk back to the car, and he hates the weakness in his legs, the shaky feeling in his arms. On the drive back, Snart leans his head on the cool glass of the window, trying to regain any semblance of his normal demeanor (he fails, miserably). Once inside, Snart stalks off to his room without so much as a word, leaving Cisco confused and worried in his wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [New Beginnings](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8875834), the second part of my Goldenvibe companions to Oculus, takes place around the time of/after this chapter and before chapter five of Oculus.


	4. The First Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luckily, a guy can dream, and Leonard’s got a very good imagination.

Snart throws himself down onto his bed, shedding layers and tossing them aside (he knows he’ll have to pick them up later, for his own sanity, but he can’t bring himself to care just yet). Tonight was a complete disaster, not just for his growing friendship with Cisco but for his ability to…just exist in the world. He’d been stubborn; he should’ve just called it the second he started to feel ill, but that would’ve felt too much like giving up. Well, nobody says that Leonard Snart isn’t a stubborn son-of-a-bitch.

 

Still, it stings. The pounding of his head and rolling of his stomach aren’t making it any better, either. He shakes his head, trying to clear it, and attempts to drag his thoughts to more pleasant things.

 

Or at least something that will hopefully give him good dreams.

 

His thoughts alight on Sara, first. His last kiss as who he was before…his last kiss as Captain Cold. It doesn’t bring him the happiness he’s aiming for. Snart’s long since known there’s no future with Sara Lance. He’s poked and prodded at his timeline, but he can’t find a single thread where she loves him. So, no to Sara then. That’s some unhappy thinking for another time.

 

And, well, thinking of Raymond is bittersweet. Snart fell hard and fast for Raymond, back in Russia, with a gun to his head and Raymond’s voice in his ear. But another thing nobody’ll say is that Leonard Snart is good at flirting. Sure, he’s a master at sexual innuendo, overly suggestive expressions, and occasionally a crude joke (never crass, though, he’s not a complete asshole). When it comes to flirting with someone he actually (fuck) _cares_ about? It’s not a pretty sight.

 

So Raymond read his advances as belligerent, and Snart’s flirtation fell flat in the face of an inability to open up…and a fucking hawk goddess. And Snart thought he’d moved on, to Sara. But even through that, his feelings for Raymond never fully went away. They just lingered, under the surface, waiting to bubble up and ruin Leonard’s day. Because really, Raymond would never fall for a guy like him (even if he was into guys which, well, there was no indication of that). Raymond truly was a boy scout, and Snart would never be anything other than a criminal to him.

 

But, there were moments. At the beginning, at the end…in Salvation, this time with a gun in his hands instead of at his head, with Raymond putting his life in Snart’s hands and trusting him to keep him safe and alive. In the cargo bay, silently working side by side, patching up their own tech, Raymond giving him advice without any expectations or condescension…ah, who knows? Maybe there was something there, maybe there wasn’t. Luckily, a guy can dream, and Leonard’s got a very good imagination.

 

Mind made up, Snart closes his eyes and finally lets himself drift off to sleep, keeping thoughts of Raymond at the edges of his subconscious.

 

When he does open his eyes, it’s to his room and at first he thinks he’s slept through the night without dreaming (and that he woke up without a hangover, miraculously). As he moves to stretch, however, he feels another body shift beside his. Snart turns to find Raymond, curled up and dead asleep at his side. Well, he’s pretty sure this is going to be a good dream. At least it’s off to a good start.

 

“Raymond,” he says quietly. Ray opens his eyes, and smiles so big that Snart can feel his heart break. He hopes he doesn’t remember this in the morning; he doesn’t want to go from this to waking up alone.

 

“Hey.” Raymond is still beaming at Snart and, god, he must be made of sunshine. Snart chokes on his words, swallows them and tries again. (What does he say when he’s woken up out of the blue next to someone looking at him like that, anyway?)

 

“You, uh. Look good.”

 

Raymond blushes, and opens his mouth presumably to say the same, but he pauses. He takes in Snart’s gaunt cheeks, the circles under his eyes, the haunted look on his face. Even now, Snart can’t stop his eyes from twitching, from constantly searching the images. Even in a dream, he can see _time_. Even in a dream, he knows he looks like hell. “Are you okay, Leonard?” Raymond asks, concern clouding his face, pulling the edges of his lips down, furrowing his brow. He’s still beautiful, and Snart knows he’s in way too deep.

 

“Uh, not really.”

 

Raymond gives a quick laugh, a sharp exhale of breath. “Me either.” He pulls his eyes away from Snart’s face and curls up against his chest. “I miss you. I wish…” Ray falls silent, and Snart might’ve thought the other man had fallen asleep if it weren’t for the hand on his hip, Raymond’s thumb tracing circles on his skin where his shirt had ridden up. Snart waits, tangling his fingers in Ray’s hair, breathing in the scent of him, and silently praying to whatever gods were listening that he would believe in them if only they would let this be real. “I wish we’d gotten to do this back on the Waverider,” Raymond finally says, muffled against Snart’s chest.

 

“Me too.”

 

“I hate that I only get to see you in my dreams.”

 

Snart pulls back a bit at that. “Pretty sure this is my dream.”

 

“Uh, nope.” Raymond props himself up on an elbow, looking confused but stubborn. “This is definitely my dream.”

 

“Then why are we in my room at S.T.A.R. Labs?”

 

“Why is your cold gun up on the wall where I hung it next to my bed?”

 

Snart looks up at the room for the first time. The bed is his, the sheets and pillows. The dresser that Lisa dragged in for him is in the corner where it belongs, but…the walls are metal. There’s a panel next to the door that Snart knows would cause the two halves to split open onto one of the hallways on the Waverider. And, just as Raymond said, there’s a clear shelf protruding from the wall where his cold gun is prominently displayed. “What the fuck?”

 

“Snart. Uh, Leonard. Look, I know this is my dream. You’re…you’re dead.”

 

“I’m not dead.” The words spill out before he can second guess himself, before he can shove them back into the place he shoved all his inconvenient feelings. He curls up, turning away from Raymond, biting down on his lip to stop anything else from pouring out.

 

After a minute, Raymond wraps around him, his hands sliding around to rest on Snart’s sternum. “I wish I could believe that you were alive, instead of dream-you telling me what I want to hear most in the world.” Snart’s breath hitches, and fuck everything, he’s going to cry. He’s just so goddamn _tired_ , and all he’d wanted was a pleasant sex dream with Raymond fucking Palmer. Instead, he’s up to his neck in feelings, and he’s not even sure what’s real anymore.

 

“I’m sorry,” Raymond says, lips pressed against the back of his neck. “I’m sorry,” Raymond says, pulling at Snart’s shoulder so he turns over. “I’m sorry,” Raymond says, his forehead pressed to Snart’s. Ray waits, breathing in sync with Snart. So Snart moves first, closing the distance, pressing his lips to Raymond’s. In that second, he knows it’s not a dream, he knows it’s something else entirely, but he stops caring. Raymond is wrapped around him, kissing him, and that’s the only thing that matters.

 

God, he just can’t get enough of Raymond. He slips his hands under the hem of Ray’s shirt (it’s cold on the Waverider, he remembers), and maneuvers it over his head. Ray returns the favor, and it should be sexy, but Snart twitches every time Raymond’s hands brush by an old scar. Habit. Never let anyone in, never let anyone see the shiny nicks and old burn marks dotting his arms and torso. Raymond pulls back, briefly, to smile reassuringly at Snart, and he relaxes back into this kiss. A conversation for another time, a time when Raymond isn’t reaching his hand into Leonard’s sweatpants, down into his boxer-briefs, and wrapping his hand around Snart’s erection.

 

“Fuck,” Snart says into Raymond’s mouth. He can’t remember ever being touched like this. It’s always been rough with everyone he’s ever had sex with—clothes ripped off, throwing each other against walls, usually on the verge of black-out drunk. But Raymond is gentle, pressing kisses down his jawbone, on the side of his neck, slowly but steadily moving his hand, and Snart can’t do anything but throw his head back and roll his hips with the rhythm that Ray has set. If his mind had been able to catch up with what’s currently happening, he might have been embarrassed at the noises coming out of his mouth, at the pleading way Raymond’s name leaves his lips. He _is_ slightly embarrassed at how fast he comes, biting down on Raymond’s neck, digging his nails into the soft skin of Raymond’s back. Raymond doesn’t seem to care; instead, he just goes back to kissing Leonard. It’s soft and sweet, and gives Snart some time for his brain to click back on enough to notice Raymond’s erection pressing up against his thigh.

 

But as he hooks his fingers in the waistband of Raymond’s boxers, he’s pulled violently out of the dream, and opens his eyes to his own bedroom, his own bed, alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took so long for me to write because Raymond fuckin Palmer would not COOPERATE. I told him that if he continued in being uncooperative, I would switch to Snart's POV. And, well, you've read the chapter, you know how that ended. Anyway, next chapter will be done soon and hopefully the update gap won't be as long!


	5. Honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His sister is too smart for her own good, and she knows him far too well.

Snart wakes up to a raging headache and Caitlin Snow yelling through his bedroom door. It takes him a minute for his head to clear, but when he starts to actually hear the words she’s saying (okay, yelling) instead of just general noise…well, it certainly doesn’t help his headache.

 

“…and you scared the HELL out of Cisco, what were you THINKING just THROWING UP and then not TELLING HIM what’s wrong and STORMING OFF without a WORD what the HELL is WRONG WITH YOU, Snart?”

 

“Fuck,” he mutters, throwing himself out of bed, trying to hold on his dream, to Raymond, but he loses all threads to it with the sounds of Caitlin shrieking. He opens his door a crack and tentatively peeks out at the small, angry woman standing there fuming. “Look, Cait…”

 

“Oh, so NOW you’re awake! Tell me, what the HELL—”

 

“Can you just, like, give me five minutes to put on pants and grab a cup of coffee?”

 

“Will you explain your HORRENDOUS behavior last night?”

 

“Yes, Caitlin, if you give me five minutes to make myself some semblance of a human being, you may yell at me all you want.”

 

“And you’ll tell me EVERYTHING.”

 

“Yeah, okay, sure.”

 

“Downstairs. Five minutes.”

 

Snart closes the door on Caitlin’s sharp glare and groans. This was really not how he wanted to start his day. Especially with that dream. It’s not the first time he’s woken up from a dream involving Raymond, but this one seems to be lingering more at the edges of his eyes. He flexes his fingers and he can almost feel Raymond move against them. Snart wishes he had more time to dwell on it, but Snow is waiting to yell at him in the lab, and he’s pretty sure she’ll be even angrier if he takes a second longer than his promised five minutes. So he puts on his pants, throws on a S.T.A.R. Labs t-shirt, shoves his new glasses on his face, and walks downstairs to the lab, snagging a (very large) cup of iced coffee from the kitchen on the way.

 

Caitlin is waiting for him in the Cortex, looking more than a little murderous. Cisco is perched off to the side, trying to look like he’s working and not at all interested in watching the ass-kicking Snart’s going to get. Leonard barely has time to throw his aching body into a chair before Caitlin stalks over, demanding an explanation. She doesn’t even let him get a word in as she berates him for, well, possibly just existing? At first he tries to talk, to cut her off, to give her any sort of excuse that will make her stop making his headache progressively worse, but she’s built up a full head of steam, and he can’t get a word in edgewise. He catches a few words about “freeloading” and “taking advantage of Cisco’s kindness,” as well as “compulsive liar” and some “petty thievery” thrown in for good measure.

 

Well, enough is enough. Snart snaps, chucking his coffee cup against an empty wall. Liquid splashes everywhere, and the cup makes a very satisfying noise as it shatters, ice clinking against the floor and the glass. He takes great pleasure in the shocked look on Caitlin’s face (and the blissful fucking silence).

 

“You want to know what happened? Really want to know what’s going on with me? Be careful what you wish for, Snow. I can’t walk outside this _fucking_ building without feeling like I’m going to pass out, that’s what. You call me a petty thief? I absolutely fucking wish that I could steal anything right about now. My senses are so dulled because of these _goddamn visions_ that I could barely case a bank right now, let alone make a plan and go through with it. One normal person in  a room alone with me is enough to give me a headache after long enough, and _Barry fucking Allen_ with his _piles of timelines_ is enough to ruin my day with a splitting headache in less than ten minutes. Everything hurts. All the time. No matter how much I try to filter out the images with goggles, with the glasses Cisco just made me, they’re still there.” Snart takes a deep breath, taking in the faces of Team Flash who are looking at him with a mix of horror, pity, and confusion.

 

“Lenny?”

 

Snart turns to find his sister in the doorway (she won’t pity him, she refuses, but she must hurt for him, she always takes on his pain unless he hides it from her) and he buries his face in his hands, smudging his glasses, in a (failed) attempt to keep his composure. “I threw up,” he starts, voice muffled by his palms pressed against his mouth, “because the visions of the strangers in that bar were enough to make me sick, and I’d been feeling sick since before I even stepped outside. I never feel well anymore. I didn’t mean to…” He’s stopped by a hand on his shoulder and peeks up to find Cisco standing over him, the rest of the team crowding closer and even that’s too much. The nausea threatens to rise up again, and he shrugs Cisco off and tries to take deep breaths, but it comes out like panting, like hyperventilating. He tries to take a second, to clean the smudges off his glasses, but he can’t catch his breath, can’t push through the wall of fog between him and the world. Goddamn it, he hates looking vulnerable, hates it more than any other thing in the whole world.

 

“Guys, can I get a sec with my brother?” Snart is so thankful for Lisa in that moment, even more so when everyone else quietly shuffles out (probably to talk about what just happened, but he can’t bring himself to care because he knows his sister better than he knows himself — her lifeline is his lifeline). His breathing slows and evens out and the nausea abates. He looks up to Lisa perched on the edge of the closest table, examining her nails.

 

“Lis’?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Thanks.” Lisa smiles at him, a quick flash of sunshine, and goes back to picking invisible dirt out from under her fingernails. She’s a pro at waiting; Snart knows she could sit there for hours waiting for him to gather his thoughts. It won’t take that long, though. He’s on this path now, and there’s nowhere to go but forward. “Sis, what do I do?”

 

She looks up with a sharp, calculating stare. “Look, Lenny, you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone anymore. Dad’s dead, you’ve just come back from the dead, you can have a fresh start. These people want to help you, I think you should let them.”

 

“Lisa…”

 

“No, I know. I get it, you know that I get it. But, like, these people are different. They’re not going to betray us as soon as we turn our backs. I can actually _sleep_ next to Cisco. Like, really sleep. I know he’s not gonna, like, steal my shit the second I close my eyes.”

 

“You’re saying I should trust them?” Lisa nods. “I…I don’t know how.”

 

She laughs. “Yeah, I don’t really either. Cisco’s helping me figure it out, I guess. He uh, I’m not sure how to describe it. Well, you’ve met him.” Leonard snorts, prompting Lisa to smack his arm. “Don’t be rude. Cisco’s great!”

 

“Yeah, Lis’, I know.”

 

“Okay, well he, like, he doesn’t try to force things on me, he just like, listens to me and notices when I mention something I like and then suddenly we’re like doing that thing — don’t be lewd, Lenny. Things like, I don’t know, he knows I like shiny, sharp things and he signed us up for a jewelry making class and Lenny, I really like it! I get to make pretty things and play with metals and gems and I can work in things for, like, self-defense and the studio is selling them now and it’s kinda weird but it’s really cool. I’m really good at it, and I would never have done it if I hadn’t let Cisco in.”

 

“So you’re saying I should go make jewelry with Cisco?” Snart smirks at his sister, but only gets a harsh glare in return.

 

“Okay, Lenny, this right here is why they’re all so upset with you. You’re not even letting me in! You can’t expect them to help you if you treat every attempt to connect with sarcasm! I don’t even know anything about what happened to you when you were gone, when you died — god, Lenny, you died! You died and you still won’t tell me anything!”

 

“Lisa…”

 

“I swear to god, if the next words out of your mouth are another deflection, I’m kicking your ass.”

 

Snart takes a deep breath. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll tell you. Just you, for now. They don’t need to…to know what I did before…”

 

“Lenny, they know you’ve done bad things! Hell, Barry was _there_ when you killed Dad.”

 

“That’s the whole problem Lisa—what I did wasn’t bad. It’s just…personal.”

 

“Personal, huh? What’s his name? Ooh, or her name?” Snart glares at his sister, who just smirks back at him. “Okay, fine, I’ll wait until you get there in your story but I’m gonna be cranky if I don’t get a name!”

 

Snart opens his mouth to say something rude, but stops himself. Trust, opening up, they have to start somewhere. They might as well start with his sister. He’s always been honest with her, but being honest and telling her everything are two very different things. So, he tells her. Everything.

 

He tells her about the rooftop, the Waverider, the team. He tells her about Raymond, about Sara. About Jax and Martin. About Kendra and Carter and Rip. About…about Mick. (He’d been carefully avoiding thinking about Mick. How would he feel, about Snart coming back from the dead? Leonard just hopes it wouldn’t be a repeat of Mick coming back as Cronos; he really doesn’t want to get his ass kicked again.) Lisa listens, quirks an eyebrow when he mentions Raymond for the 90th time, cocks her head when he lingers on Sara for a sentence too long. His sister is too smart for her own good, and she knows him far too well. When he gets to the end—to the Oculus, the Time Masters, the end—he sees tears well in her eyes. He finishes and she jumps down from her perch on the table and wraps him in her arms.

 

“I’m proud of you, Lenny. I knew you were different, that you weren’t the same person who left, but…it’s not only because of the Oculus. You changed long before that, and I am so excited to see the person my big brother is going to become.” She pulls back and grins at him and even through her watery eyes, Leonard can see the hope shining out.

 

“Okay,” he says, “I think…I think I’m ready to—”

 

“Open up?”

 

“Yeah, sure.” Lisa moves to call them back in, but Leonard stops her with a hand on her arm. “Lisa.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Will you…stay with me?”

 

“Of course, Lenny.”

 

“And yell at me when I try to deflect?” She laughs, nods, and yells for Team Flash. Leonard’s got a lot of talking to do.


	6. Powers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Flash trains people with powers. Metahumans. Reincarnated hawk goddesses. Superheroes.

Opening up isn’t easy, and Snart has a growing bruise on his upper arm; a casualty of his defenses popping back up every once in a while, and also of Lisa’s unwillingness to let him deflect. But, well, now that he’s starting to tell Team Flash more of the specifics of what he’s going through, he’s finding out that this is what they _do_.

 

Team Flash trains people with powers. Metahumans. Reincarnated hawk goddesses. Superheroes. Leonard’s never thought of himself in that way before; never put himself in line with people like Barry and Kendra. He’s accepted that he’s never going to be Captain Cold again, but he never thought about the possibility of becoming a superhero. (He still doesn’t believe it, not when kindness sticks in his throat, gets caught in the shards of ice he’s collected in the nooks and crannies of his body over the years. People like him don’t get to be heroes, even when they stop being villains.)

 

Caitlin’s already done about a million tests on him, so this time he starts with Harry. This Wells isn’t the same Wells who trained Barry initially, but he’s been working with his speedster daughter, so it’s not his first rodeo. Harry’s been watching him, keeping notes in his head, probably since before Snart woke up from his coma, so he’s got a backlog of ideas to work through. Snart spends a lot of time in the new speed training room, pulling apart timelines and describing everything he’s seeing and doing.

 

Once Harry gets bored with this, he brings in Barry. Trying to desensitize Snart with prolonged exposure, maybe? He makes Snart pull apart Barry’s timelines, sort the disparate events, figure out what goes where. Barry sits on the floor, in the middle of the room, and Leonard spends hours, days, walking in circles around him, pulling apart his life. He’s always in pain, but at least he gets to tell Barry he’s a moron at least ten times a day, and Harry backs him up every single time. Small pleasures.

 

Speaking of small pleasures…He still keeps some things to himself. Even from Lisa. The dreams with Raymond, they don’t stop. They’re happening every night now, and every night they pick back up where they left off.

 

The second dream starts off with Raymond, curled up again next to Snart, waiting. As soon as Snart…arrives? (Does he appear out of thin air? Is he just suddenly there when he finally slips into a deep sleep? Or is he always there, but sleeping?) Raymond is up, seemingly fuming a bit but warring with the sunshine hiding under his skin.

 

“Hey, you’re finally back!”

 

“Yeah, hey.”

 

“You, uh, left at kind of a bad time last night.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

“It’s okay.” Raymond is always too quick to forgive, but since Snart is too slow, he can’t really fault him for that. “What happened?”

 

“I got woken up…unexpectedly.” Snart reaches out, his fingertips brushing Ray’s jawline but snapping back immediately to his side. He _knows_ , he knows it’s not just a dream. And he knows that Raymond doesn’t know it’s not. Ray won’t let himself be convinced, no matter how much Leonard tries—in between kisses, a pause to catch his breath, a whisper against the skin of Raymond’s neck, “I’m not dead, I’m not dead, I’m not dead…”

 

At least this time he gets to reciprocate, instead of leaving Raymond to finish the job himself. They’re still getting to know each other’s bodies—it’s hot and heavy but still too new to move past groping each other under the sheets, reaching under waistbands, relying on friction and fingertips, moaning into each other’s mouths.

 

When they’ve both finished, lying together with tangled limbs, waiting for their breathing to calm and their heart rates to even out, Snart starts to panic. His pattern after orgasm is always get up, clean off, get dressed, get out.

 

But, even if this wasn’t a…shared dream, this is Ray Palmer. Resident boy scout, pretty boy, puppy dog. He’s still the man who punched Snart in the face and then saved his life. He’s still one of the people Leonard died for, for fuck’s sake. Even more than that, though, he’s still the man Snart fell for on the Waverider. And he understands, you don’t leave a person’s bed immediately after sex if you actually care for them. But that doesn’t mean he actually knows what to do now.

 

Thankfully, Raymond seems to. Snart realizes that his various past long-term relationships must’ve given him this knowledge (or maybe it’s something everyone who isn’t super fucked up about relationships knows?) and he’s just glad someone knows what to do. Raymond makes a small, contented noise, and moves around in the bed so his head is resting on Snart’s shoulder, his hand at the base of Snart’s ribcage, his legs interlocked with Snart’s. It’s weird. Leonard’s never been good with prolonged contact, and he starts to worry that his shoulder is bony and uncomfortable, that he doesn’t know where to put his hands.

 

“Um, Raymond?”

 

“Hmm?” Ray props himself up and clearly notices the stress on Snart’s face because he immediately goes into worry-mode. “Did I do something wrong? Are you okay? Is this uncomfortable?” Leonard has to laugh, a quick exhale of breath, releasing a minimal amount of tension in his shoulders.

 

“No, Raymond,” he says, running a hand through Ray’s hair. “I’ve just…never been in a rel—uh. Never stayed in bed with someone long enough to cuddle. I don’t know if I’m doing it right.”

 

“Was it, I mean, were you comfortable?” Leonard nods. “Then you’re doing it right! It’s just about comfort and, I don’t know, bonding?” Snart raises an eyebrow, but lets Raymond settle back down on top of him. He has to admit, it is comforting—the weight of Raymond’s body on his, the smell of sex and sweat lingering and mixing with Raymond’s scent. He’s never really gotten to appreciate this before, and he smiles slightly as he runs his fingers through Ray’s hair.

 

But it can’t last forever and all too soon he’s waking up in his own bed, alone again.

 

It stays with him, though; not just the groping and the orgasm, but the _feeling_. He tries to wear it around his neck like jewelry, close to his heart, and with him when he needs it. And boy, does he need it. He latches on to it when he feels like he’s going over the edge. He’s not entirely unconvinced that Harry isn’t trying to kill him, or that he won’t kill him accidentally anyway.

 

Once Snart can stay in the same room with Barry, for an hour, without his glasses or a headache, Harry moves them right along.

 

“You want me to…change the past? Isn’t that what we’ve been verbally eviscerating Barry for doing for the last few weeks?”

 

“No, see, Leonard, we’re not going that far back. I want you to move a vase _yesterday_ , and see what it does today. Minute changes to the timeline, see if you can do it, and then see what happens from it.”

 

Snart tries to think of any excuse, any way to get out of trying to do this; he’s so wary of fucking with the timeline, but Wells won’t back down and he finally caves.

 

It takes him a few hours to figure it out—he tugs on the timeline, gets it to the right spot and, finally, he pulls. There’s a crash from the other room.

 

“What the hell?” He hears Cisco shout from his workroom.

 

“Whoops,” Harry says, not sounding even the smallest bit sorry, “guess that worked.” Cisco stalks into the room, glaring.

 

“What did you do? That vase was not there a minute ago. In fact, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t even in the room.”

 

“Uh, nope. It was in a cabinet somewhere on the fourth floor…” He trails off, realizing what Cisco has just said. “Wait, you remember it not being there?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Snart looks to Harry, confused. “Shouldn’t he not remember?” Harry just shrugs. Leonard wishes, just for a second, that he was dealing with disgraced-time-master-in-disguise Eobard Thawne, even if he’s heard absolute horror stories about the man. Even with all of Harry’s big ideas, they’re all just fumbling around in the dark, trying to find something that sticks. “Whatever, I’m done for the day.”

 

“No, you’re not.”

 

“Yup. I am.” Snart turns his back on Harry, brushes past Cisco, and heads up to the roof. It’s nighttime, and there’s a briskness in the air that he loves. Central City never stays cold for long, but it doesn’t stay hot for long, either. And the nights are always, if not perfect, at least bearable. Tonight is perfect. He lays out on the lounge chair he’s brought up for this exact purpose, and takes his glasses off. Everything immediately gets brighter, the images flashing in front of his eyes become clearer.

 

He’s alone, in this. There’s nobody who can really, truly tell him how his powers work. Even Rip freakin’ Hunter would probably have no idea what to do with him. He knows, without knowing how he knows it, that the Oculus has never bonded with a human before. Maybe it latched on to an alien sometime in the very distant past but if it did, their biology was too different to make much of a difference. “A whole new world,” he mutters aloud. The sky stretches above him, a vast expanse that he used to feel at home under. Now he just feels homesick and alone.


	7. Mistaken Identity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That’s the only thing that stops him from losing his cool as Raymond Palmer walks into the room.

The team goes to Jitters.

 

Snart understands, they’ve all got lives. Barry has a job, one that’s not at S.T.A.R. Labs. Hell, Harry doesn’t even really live in this universe. So he doesn’t expect them to be at the lab all the time. It’s just that the halls echo more with the clunk of his boots when he’s the only one in the building. Even Lisa went with them to pick up some caffeine on her way to a job, and it’s hard to fault her for having friends, a boyfriend who genuinely cares for her, but it stings more than he thought it would that he can’t go with them.

 

Ugh, he hates wallowing in self-pity. But it’s not like there’s anything else he can do. He could…go on the roof (but he spends too much of his time up there anyway and plus, it’s kind of muggy out). He could keep working on his powers (but he does that all day, every day). He could…go on the internet? Snart’s checked the library at the lab, there’s nothing in there but heavy physics textbooks and even he’s not bored enough for that. Maybe he could convince Cisco to get him a Kindle…which won’t help him now.

 

He finally settles on grabbing a fresh cup of iced coffee and fiddling around on the computers in the Cortex. It’s the only choice that will keep his mind occupied, instead of focusing on…footsteps? Someone’s back. He lets his mind open, tries to recognize their timeline, but it’s unfamiliar. That’s the only thing that stops him from losing his cool as Raymond Palmer walks into the room.

 

It doesn’t, however, stop him from being out of his chair and halfway across the room before his brain can catch up with what’s going on. He stops himself, snagging his fingers on the edge of a tabletop, lurching to a halt. The man looks at him, and he can tell right away that this is not Ray Palmer. There’s a hint of cruelty behind the eyes, and it’s then that he remembers Raymond mentioning a brother. He had neglected to mention that he and his brother are _twins_ , however. Snart searches his memory and dredges up a name: “Sydney. You must be Sydney.”

 

“I take it you know my brother.” Snart nods, almost imperceptibly. “Who are you?”

 

“I’m nobody.” Snart’s gotta watch himself, has to hold himself back. Sydney looks so much like Raymond that he can feel his boundaries slipping. He’s been working on being more open with Team Flash, but he trusts them. He trusts Raymond. He doesn’t trust Sydney.

 

“Uh, okay, whatever. Look, I have a message for Barry Allen from Felic—”

 

“Great. Lemme call him.” Snart pulls out his phone, and it takes him a second to locate Barry’s number, since all his texts are from Lisa or Cisco (or Lisa, texting from Cisco’s phone).

 

“Snart?”

 

“Sydney Palmer, here to see you. He’s got a message from…” Snart glances over to Sydney, and he thinks he’s steeled himself against the sight of Raymond, but he has most definitely not and he almost winces. “Who’s the message from?”

 

“Felicity Smoak.”

 

Snart repeats the name, and Barry says he’ll be right there (but that he’s gonna take the normal-person amount of time, since apparently nobody’s really sure if this Palmer knows that Barry’s the Scarlet Speedster…plus, the whole team wants to come with and find everything out together). So now Snart’s stuck with someone who is almost-but-not-quite the person he most wants to be with at the moment and, honestly, it’s hell. He keeps almost saying something, anything, but honestly there’s nothing to say to a man he doesn’t know.

 

But Sydney’s gotta break the silence somehow, apparently. He’s a nervous talker, like his brother. “So, uh, what did you say your name was?”

 

“I didn’t.” No sense in giving not-Raymond any more information than the bare minimum.

 

“Okay…Um…Will you tell me how you know Ray?”

 

“No.”

 

Silence falls, and Snart takes a deep breath, hastily building back up a few of the walls he’d been working on tearing down over the past few months. He needs to be less Leonard and more Captain Cold right now, or he’s going to blurt out something stupid like, “You look like the man I’ve been seeing in my dreams,” or, “Hey, I had my hand down your brother’s pants last night.”

 

It’s funny, though, how hard it is to push those walls back up. He spent his whole life building them up, and a few months with Team Flash and he’s biting the inside of his cheek to keep his thoughts inside his head. It seems like forever, but finally everyone gets back to the Cortex, and Snart ducks out as the introductions are happening. He stops around the corner, out of direct sightlines but close enough that he can still hear their voices.

 

“Who, uh, was that guy? The one who just, like, left.” Sydney asks. Cisco tells him, and there’s silence for a moment. “Wait, _Leonard_ Snart? Captain Cold?”

 

“Uh, yeah,” Caitlin answers cautiously. “Why?”

 

“My brother mentioned him, is all.”

 

“How do they know each other?” Barry asks, clearly confused. Snart still hasn’t told the team anything about his time on the Waverider. Lisa can know, Cisco probably knows some of it because Lisa probably told him, but Leonard’s been pretty quiet about it around everyone else.

 

“You guys know that Ray is like, a time traveler or something now, right?” He gets a chorus of ‘no’s and continues. “Okay, well, like, I guess they were on the time ship together? Ray was back for a bit, a few months ago. He said that Leonard Snart was dead.”

 

“Yeah,” Cisco says awkwardly, “he uh, got better.”

 

“Um…okay. Well, he seems like kind of a dick. From the way my brother was talking about him, you’d think sunshine came out of his ass.” Silence. “He just, uh, said he was a hero and some stuff about him saving the world or the team or maybe both? I don’t know, he came in with Snart’s gun and talked him up and then went off to go find some guy named Mick? Whatever. Anyway, Felicity wanted me to give you a message...”

 

Snart stops listening. Obviously, he’s talked (among other things) with Raymond in their shared dreams, but…there’s still a feeling of unreality with those. To know that Ray talked so (highly? fondly?)…so well of Snart to his brother, who then _repeated_ that to Team Flash? Well, it’s all a bit overwhelming. He leans back against the wall, his head hitting the cold concrete, and he turns Sydney’s words over and over in his head, trying to imagine Raymond actually saying them. From what he remembers, Ray and his brother weren’t even close, so it’s even more mystifying that he would’ve said those things. His thoughts are swirling, spiraling, the timeline blurring in front of his eyes as he tries to keep his walls up.

 

He blinks, and opens his eyes on the Waverider. In the cargo bay. In front of Raymond.

 

 “Leonard?” Raymond tries to pry himself up and out from under the bits and pieces of his ATOM suit spread across his lap. Tech spills onto the floor as Raymond attempts to step forward, tripping over his own feet.

 

Snart blinks again, and finds himself hitting the concrete floor of S.T.A.R. Labs, hard, face-first. “Fuck!” His glasses crack and stay on the floor as he rolls, hands moving to his nose to try to stem the blood gushing from it. Cisco and Caitlin come running, he feels their lifelines coming closer, and then Caitlin’s warm hands are on his forehead, carefully moving his hands away to press on the bridge of his nose. 

 

“Cisco, help me get his head up. His nose is broken, I need to set it.”

 

“Fuck,” Snart says again (he’s feeling especially eloquent at the moment), blood pooling in his mouth. He grits his teeth against the blood and the pain as Cisco gently but firmly holds the back of his skull, and Caitlin snaps his cartilage and bone back into place. Snart doesn’t scream, but it’s a close call. Barry appears at a dead run (sans lightning), holding out gauze like an offering. Caitlin grabs it, and unceremoniously stuffs chunks of it up Leonard’s nose. He winces, the force (and his recoil from the sting) pushing his head back into Cisco’s hands again. Harry and Sydney follow Barry around the corner, looking pensive and confused, respectively.

 

“What happened?” Cisco asks from his perch behind Snart. Leonard opens his mouth to talk, but chokes on the blood dripping down his throat. More gauze is pressed against his mouth, and he complies as Caitlin tells him to spit. Barry runs off again (also lightning-free, at least within sight) to grab a glass of water (with ice, surprisingly thoughtful), and Snart gratefully rinses out his mouth.

 

Everyone is still crowding around him, waiting for an answer, but without his glasses blocking out the images, he’s starting to get overwhelmed again. He presses the ice cold glass to his nose, using it as an excuse to close his eyes so he can explain.

 

“I was on the Waverider.”

 

“What?!” Caitlin’s disbelieving voice is way too loud and way too close and he holds up a hand. Team Flash is used to this signal by now, and they move back, pulling Sydney along with them.

 

Once they’re a few feet away, Snart is able to continue. “I think I, uh, can…astral project? Is that the term?”

 

“Huh,” Harry says, “interesting. We’ll run some tests when your nose stops bleeding.” The rest of the team is silent, probably unsure of what to say to this revelation and Snart’s stopped caring about Sydney Palmer. All he cares about is getting to Raymond, explaining to him...what just happened? He doesn’t know, he just knows that he needs to see Ray as soon as possible. 

 

“Great. I’m gonna…go take a nap…” Snart pulls himself off the ground, thankful to find Cisco at his elbow, ready to help him to his room.

 

“Don’t forget to keep your head elevated!” Caitlin calls after them, and Snart waves his free hand in the air, to indicate that he heard.


	8. Haunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s just confusing, trying to reconcile the Leonard from his dreams with the Snart he knew on the Waverider.

Ray stands in the cargo bay, extraneous pieces of the ATOM suit scattered on the floor at his feet, stunned. Did he really just…was that really Leonard? Right in front of him?

 

“Um, uh, Gideon?”

 

“Yes, Doctor Palmer?”

 

“Was I…was that a hallucination?”

 

“If you mean the image of Mr. Snart that appeared just now, no, it was not a hallucination.”

 

“Thank you, Gideon.”

 

He sits down, fast. If Leonard was here and not a hallucination…then his dreams have been real. It just doesn’t make sense. It was probably a hologram of some sort or…maybe a time remnant? Yeah, that makes sense. They are currently in the temporal zone, after all.

 

Only…why would a hologram have been wearing a S.T.A.R. Labs t-shirt? Why would a time remnant be wearing thick-rimmed black glasses that Raymond has never seen on Leonard Snart?

 

Raymond is well and truly fucked. He’s been treating his dreams with Snart as if they were, well, dreams. Knowing that they’ve been real this whole time…Ray isn’t sure what to feel. He’s been pining over Leonard the last few months, or maybe mourning is a better term. This is what he wanted, isn’t it? It’s just confusing, trying to reconcile the Leonard from his dreams with the Snart he knew on the Waverider. Snart, even at the end, was closed-off, cold, untouchable. Literally. He shied away from touch, avoided it like the plague.

 

In his dreams, though, Leonard responded to his touch, and there had been plenty of touching. He wasn’t warm by any stretch, but it seemed as though he was at least thawing out a bit. Ray thinks of the way Leonard moaned his name and feels himself blushing. That was _real_ …

 

He really just needs to talk to Leonard. The only place he knows where to do that is in his dreams. He heads to his room at a half-run, telling Gideon to make sure nobody disturbs him, unless it’s, like, a matter of life and death.

 

He doesn’t even bother taking off the under-suit pieces that are still attached to him as he throws himself in his bed and tries to fall asleep. Five minutes, than ten, than twenty, and he’s still awake. He can’t calm his heart rate or shut his brain off, and the longer he stays awake the more frustrated he gets. Which, of course, doesn’t actually help him fall asleep. Finally, he’s had enough.

 

“Gideon?”

 

“Yes, Doctor Palmer?”

 

“Can I have like, uh, do you have any sleeping pills or anything?”

 

“I can prescribe a mild sedative if you are having trouble falling asleep.”

 

“Yeah, uh, that would be great, Gideon, thanks.” Ray takes the pill that pops out of the tiny drawer in the wall, and lets his body fall back down on the bed. He tries to breathe, to calm down, and after a thankfully very short amount of time, he feels the pill do its work and bring him into a deep sleep.

 

He opens his eyes to a pacing Snart, who stills as soon as Ray appears.

 

“Raymond.”

 

“You’re alive?!”

 

Snart smiles ruefully. “I’ve been telling you that I am.”

 

“Yeah, but. How?”

 

Leonard moves back so he’s leaning against the wall. Ray notices that his glasses are gone now, but he’s still wearing the S.T.A.R. Labs shirt from earlier. He can see that the scars and marks covering Snart’s arms are still there, shiny against his skin. “I tried to tell you, earlier. We just…kept getting distracted.”

 

“Is that why you’re on the other side of the room? And not looking at me?” Snart looks up, one eyebrow arched. “Um, sorry. I’ll just…sit here. Listening.” Snart looks down again, studying the floor of the room that they’ve created with their shared minds, and Ray can practically see Leonard parsing out what he’s going to say and how he’s going to say it.

 

He’d thought that was what the pacing had been for, but apparently Snart didn’t come to any decisions while waiting for Ray to show up. “Leonard?” He prompts, after a minute or two of silence.

 

“Yeah, uh. I’m trying to figure out where to start.”

 

“Maybe start with the part where you got blown up?”

 

Leonard’s moving his hands like he’s wishing he had something to fiddle with. Ray can relate; he always thinks better when he’s moving, even if it’s something as small as tapping a finger. “Yeah, I could…do that.” But he doesn’t.

 

“Leonard.” Snart looks up. “Come here.” Ray gestures to the bed next to him. Snart sighs and walks resolutely to the bed. He looks like he’s walking to his death, but at least he looks good while he does. He sits on the bed next to Ray, one leg tucked up under him. Ray can’t help but cuddle up close, wrapping an arm around Leonard’s waist, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek before resting his head on Snart’s shoulder.

 

Snart takes a deep breath, and finally begins his explanation. “I don’t know the full, uh, technical reasons of what happened to me. What is happening to me. I, uh, when the Oculus exploded…when I blew up the Oculus at the Vanishing Point, I…became the Oculus.”

 

Ray pulls back. “What? Okay, we’ll come back to that, but…that explosion was huge. There was no way you survived.”

 

“Yeah, I think I might have died. It just…didn’t take. I was pulled back home, to Central City, and uh. I can see the past. And possible futures. I’ve been working on reaching into the past and moving things around. Maybe the future too.” Once Leonard starts, it seems hard for him to stop. The words keep pouring out. “Well, we’re in a shared dream, so clearly that’s something I can do. And, as I also discovered today, I can astral project. Although, better make sure that I’m not standing up when I do that next time—I really don’t want to break my nose again.”

 

“You broke your nose?!” Ray immediately runs his fingers along the bridge of Snart’s nose, and Leonard hisses in pain and swats his hand away.

 

“Yeah, like, half an hour ago! Don’t touch it!”

 

“Sorry, sorry!” Leonard sighs at Ray, but responds to Ray cuddling up against his side by putting his arm around Ray’s waist. “So…you’re the Oculus?”

 

“Yup.”

 

“And…you’re alive?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Can I…come find you?” Snart opens his mouth to reply, and then his face goes blank.

 

“Leonard?” No response. Ray pokes him, shakes him a bit, still no response. Well, he’s still actually there, so he probably didn’t get woken up. And now Ray is out of ideas. Snart’s body is starting to wobble on the edge of the bed, so Ray kind of tugs and pushes at his torso to lay him down on the bed. He doesn’t want Leonard to fall over and possibly re-break his nose. Which, given Ray’s luck, would probably happen.

 

There’s nothing more Ray can do right now except wait for whatever is happening to, well, stop happening. He takes the opportunity to study Leonard. Ray notices that he’s lost muscle mass and his hair is grayer than it was before. He’s still fit, it’s just…a softer kind of fit than the corded muscles Ray had felt on the rare occasions when he came into physical contact with Snart on the Waverider. Ray still finds him as attractive as he ever has, which is a lot, but he has to admit that Snart looks ill. He runs his fingertips along Leonard’s hair, enjoying the soft rasp it makes as it brushes over his close-cropped hair.  
  
He’s just about to curl up in bed next to Snart, to wait him out, when Leonard suddenly surges up, chest heaving, almost whacking his head against Ray’s.

 

Ray lets out a yelp, eliciting a glare from Snart as he tries to catch his breath. “Leonard?” He has to start counting the number of times he says _Leonard_ over the course of this conversation. He thinks it’s probably a high number.

 

“No,” Snart says, still trying to catch his breath.

 

“I’m sorry, no to what?”

 

“No, you can’t come find me. Fuck.”

 

“What…what just happened?”

 

Snart grabs Ray’s hand, gripping it tight. “The Oculus showed me what will happen if I come in contact with the whole team at once. Let’s just say it involves some bleeding from the eyeballs. Also, possibly death.”

 

“What?!”

 

“Probably for the same reason that Barry gives me a headache…” He turns in the bed so his body is facing Ray. “You all have…more alternate timelines than any one person should have. Uh, everyone has potential timelines, obviously, and now that the Time Bastards aren’t manipulating us, you, we all have free will.”

 

“Our decisions are our own?”

 

Snart looks at him strangely, but nods slightly and continues. “Yeah, sure. Um…okay, so Barry likes to fuck with the timeline. For the most part, all he changes is his timeline, and it slightly messes up the timelines of a handful of people on the periphery in addition to his own. Although…he did change it pretty drastically recently…and it’s still there even if he mostly changed it back. Anyway, it’s taken me a few months to be able to be in the same room as Barry for a long period of time without feeling horrible. All of you have…more timelines than Barry could ever dream of. Alone, most of you will probably make me sick. I’d survive, but, uh. Rip. He’s got more timelines than the rest of you combined. If I see Rip Hunter before I can fully control my powers…I’ll die.”

 

Ray is at a loss for words. Things had been so hopeful just a few minutes ago. He was going to find Leonard and bring him back on the ship and they were going to work things out together and…be together. But Ray always gets way too far ahead of himself in planning.

 

“Okay, so. We can’t come pick you up and bring you back on the Waverider. But…what if it was just me?”

 

Snart looks down. “You’d…leave the team?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“For me?”

 

“Yes.” Ray lifts Leonard’s chin and kisses him, soft and sweet. Leonard leans into it for a minute, but then pulls back.

 

“Don’t. Not for me.”

 

“But—”

 

“Raymond. Please.”

 

“Will you tell me why?” Ray asks, stroking Leonard’s face with his thumb.

 

But Snart turns away, disengages, stands up and moves back, leans against the far wall again. Well, now Ray is pissed.

 

“Leonard, what the fuck?” He asks, getting up and advancing on Snart. “Just _last night_ you were open with me, you let me in. Why aren’t you letting me in?” He pins Leonard to the wall, hands bracketing Snart’s face. To his credit, Snart doesn’t flinch. But, he doesn’t meet Ray’s eyes either.

 

“Last night, you didn’t think this was real. Last night, you thought I was dead.”

 

“So?”

 

“So, it turns out I’m not as good as opening up when the stakes are higher.” Leonard’s voice is a whisper, and Ray has to lean in to hear his words. “It was…” He clears his throat and finally looks Ray in the eyes. “It was easier when you looked at me like you already had me, not like your heart is broken because of me.”

 

“Leonard…”

 

“I’m just going to hurt you, Raymond. Why don’t you understand that?”

 

“Why don’t you understand that I don’t care?” Ray pushes off the wall and takes a step back so he can really look at Leonard. “Yeah, it really fucking hurt when you died. It hurt when I realized that I was an idiot who could’ve had a chance with you. And it’s been hurting every morning for the past few weeks, because you’re not there when I wake up. You’ve already hurt me, but I still want to be with you.  Leonard, I lo—”

 

“Don’t.” Snart’s expression turns frosty. “Don’t you dare.” Ray sputters, tries to talk, but Leonard doesn’t let him. “No, Raymond. No. I…fuck, I can’t do this right now.” He vanishes, leaving Ray aching in his wake.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Dubious for beta-ing this chapter! Ray is just so hard to write! 
> 
> Also, the chapter title is taken from Haunting by Halsey, the song that prompted me to start an Oculus-fic-Coldatom playlist.


	9. Leo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At least he’s learned from this that he’s still great at self-sabotage. It’s good to know your weaknesses.

Snart pulls himself out of the dream and finds that it hurts more than he thought it would (and he thought it would hurt a whole hell of a lot). He knows he’s panicking, but he can’t help it. He’s never known what it was like to have… _love_. (Romantic love, that is. Leonard knows familial love, knows that he loves his sister more than he has ever loved himself.) He’s always thought it was something that you say after a few months, maybe a year, that it’s something sacred and (for him) unattainable.

 

But here is Ray Palmer, saying it after a few weeks of sordid dreams and a little more than a year of knowing him. Hell, Raymond didn’t even seem to like him in the beginning. Not until Russia, anyway.

 

At least he’s learned from this that he’s still great at self-sabotage. It’s good to know your weaknesses.

 

So he begins another day at S.T.A.R. Labs. Another cup of iced coffee, another breakfast sandwich in the microwave of the small kitchen, another hour sitting around in the Cortex, waiting for the team to drag their asses into the lab. Where is Harry, anyway? He’s usually the first to arrive, his daughter trailing along sleepily behind him. At least Sydney left sometime after Snart broke his nose on the concrete floor and before he woke up this morning.

 

Leonard figures he may as well work on his powers while he waits (maybe Harry will yell at him less today if he starts working early). So he leans back in the chair, closes his eyes, and opens his mind.

 

There’s the usual murmur of the city, close enough to pick out lifelines, people, going about their day, far enough that he doesn’t get overwhelmed so quickly or so easily. He’s getting better every day with Harry’s training, as much as he hates to admit it.

 

Ah, there everyone is. He finds Lisa’s lifeline at Jitters, bounces from her to Cisco, to Barry, to Caitlin, to Harry, to Iris, to Jesse, to…

 

Sudden, overwhelming pain. There’s another lifeline there, another lifeline with layers and threads all intertwined and piled on top of each other and Snart’s sucked in and he’s lost in it and—

 

Leonard yanks himself out to find blood pouring out of his nose and a killer headache pounding at his temples.

 

He calls Lisa.

 

“Lenn—”

 

“Put him on.”

 

“Who?” Lisa puts on her most innocent voice, but Leonard isn’t having any of her shit today.

 

“Put. Him. On.”

 

Static and quiet murmurs follow. Snart waits, trying to be patient (and trying to find the extra gauze from his broken nose yesterday to stem today’s bleeding).

 

“Leonard,” the voice that comes on the phone begins, but Snart’s got a headache, he’s covered in blood, and he’s feeling more than a little betrayed.

 

“Don’t you dare fucking start with me, Raymond. I specifically told you not to come find me. Now I’m having a really shitty day, all because you showed up when I _asked you not to_.”

 

“Can I—”

 

“No. Get the fuck back on the Waverider and get the hell out of Central City. I don’t want you here. Put Lisa back on.”

 

“Leonard, please let me—”

 

Raymond shows no signs of putting Lisa back on the phone, so Snart just hangs up. He wants to put his head down on the desk, but he knows that Cisco will yell at him if he gets blood on any of the keyboards. So instead he stands up, intending to go take a shower, when there’s a gust of wind and a flash of lightning and, yup, there’s Barry blocking his way.

 

“Not now, Barry.”

 

“Yeah, now, Snart.” Barry looks pissed. Leonard can relate. “Ray said he came back to Central City for you.”

 

“Good for Raymond.”

 

“Could you stop being an asshole for, like, two seconds?”

 

“Probably not.” Snart tries to push past Barry, and fails.

 

“Hey. Ray’s really upset.”

 

“And I almost got lost in all of his timelines, which a) could have killed me and b) gave me this lovely nosebleed and a splitting headache. Sorry if I’m not too interested in Raymond’s feelings right now.” Snart finally succeeds in pushing past Barry and starts to head to his room, but Barry stops him again, this time with a question instead of his body.

 

“Why won’t you let us help?”

 

“Us?”

 

“Yeah, us. We’ve been brainstorming with Ray all morning! We’re gonna help you figure it out. Harry’s got some ideas to work through with you.”

 

Snart’s having a hard time processing all of this. “Ideas?” He’s zeroing in on single words, because the big picture is too overwhelming.

 

“Yeah. You didn’t think we were going to let you do this alone, did you? Ray told us what you said, about the eyeball bleeding and stuff. We were going to come talk to you about it, minus Ray of course, but we kinda lost track of time and you found out before we could let you know.”

 

Leonard had never even considered this. Had never considered that Team Flash would have a plan to get him together with Raymond. All the anger, all the frustration, pours out of him and leaves him weary. “I fucked up, didn’t I, Barry?”

 

Barry chuckles. “Yeah, you did, Snart. But I think it’s fixable. Why don’t you call Lisa again and talk to Ray and we’ll give you both some space, okay?”

 

Snart nods and pulls out his phone as Barry speeds away. He dials his sister, but it’s Raymond who picks up.

 

“Leonard?”

 

“Um, hey.”

 

“Hey!” Snart can feel the sun shining through Raymond’s voice and he’s even more ashamed of himself, of his overreaction.

 

“I’m, uh…”

 

“Hey, it’s okay! You absolutely told me not to do this and then I did it anyway, it was probably kind of selfish, okay maybe a lot selfish, but you also just really looked like you needed me.”

 

Snart’s already feeling overloaded, and he doesn’t know what to say, but he hears his sister’s voice in the back of his head, telling him that she’s gonna kick his ass if he doesn’t try to open up.

 

So he tries.

 

“I do need you.” He grits his teeth but keeps going. “I mean, I do want you here. I’m just…it’s just so much more difficult for me when you are so close and I still can’t really be with you.”

 

“Yeah, Leonard, I get that. But isn’t it better for me to be here working with you on it so we can be together sooner? Instead of on opposite sides of time and space? Well, obviously not actually opposite because that’s not possible, but you know what I mean.”

 

“Leo.”

 

“What?”

 

“My childhood nickname.” Snart takes a deep breath, and he can feel something inside him shift. “You can call me Leo, if you want. And you’re right, it’s better.” He can sense Raymond’s smile over the airwaves.

 

“Hey, I’m gonna brainstorm a bit more with everyone and then I’ll send them back to you! With coffee! Oh, and I’m gonna put your number in my phone and I’ll call you later, okay?”

 

“That uh, sounds good.”

 

Leonard feels himself smiling now, and he feels hopeful for the first time in a while. He feels like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel; that maybe he’ll be able to have some semblance of a normal life. Eventually.

 

It’s only after they hang up that Snart remembers he’s still covered in blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Raymond "plans ten steps ahead and freaks out when things go wrong on step two" Palmer makes his actual appearance!


	10. Have You No Idea That You're In Deep?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SNART  
> I don't make puns.  
> RAYMOND  
> Okay, Leo. Sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is in script format. AO3 apparently hates script format. I am so, so sorry. Please let me know if it is not readable. I will try to fiddle with it to make it make sense. IT LOOKED SO PRETTY IN SCRIVENER AND WORD. It does look better on mobile than on desktop, so if you're having trouble on desktop, maybe try moving to mobile?  
> Also, thanks to Dubious again for being a wonderful beta.

INT. SNART'S ROOM IN S.T.A.R. LABS - NIGHT

SNART lays on his bed, reading from his e-reader, which is emblazoned with “CISCO'S KINDLE” on the back.

INT. RAYMOND'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

RAYMOND paces, holding his phone in his hand. He comes to a decision, sits on the edge of his bed, and clicks on a contact, calling SNART.

SPLIT SCREEN: INT. SNART'S ROOM AGAIN - NIGHT, RAYMOND'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

SNART's phone rings. He puts his Kindle down, carefully, and answers.

SNART

Raymond?

RAYMOND

Yeah, hey, it's me!

SNART

(Dryly.)

I figured.

Brief silence.

SNART (CONT'D)

So, uh, I meant to ask earlier: how'd you know where to find me? I mean, when.

RAYMOND

Did you know that Harry keeps, like, perfect logs of his work with you?

SNART

No...

RAYMOND

Well, he does. And, uh, Gideon has them on file. For some reason. She wouldn't let me look at them, something about messing with my own timeline...

SNART

Probably a good idea.

RAYMOND

(Nodding, even though SNART can't see him.)

Anyway, she found the first mention of astral projection and it coincided with your broken nose, so we figured this was the best time to show up.

SNART

Makes sense. Does, uh, the team know?

RAYMOND

Do you think Mick would've let me come alone if the team knew? Or Sara, or Jax, or anyone?

SNART

Okay, fair. What did you tell them?

RAYMOND

That I needed some time. That they could get along without me for a bit. That I, uh, needed some time to recover.

SNART

Recover?

RAYMOND

Yeah...our last mission went pretty bad.

SNART

Raymond. What aren't you telling me?

RAYMOND

I messed up, okay? I messed up, and I almost got everyone killed.

SNART

But everyone's okay?

RAYMOND

Yeah...

SNART

And you're okay?

RAYMOND

Yeah, I'm okay, Leo.

Pause.

SNART

Good.

Pause.

SNART (CONT'D)

I'm not used to it yet.

RAYMOND

To what?

SNART

Leo.

RAYMOND

You said I could. Is it still okay?

SNART

Of course. I just haven't had anyone call me that since I was a kid. It's...nice. Just gonna take some getting used to.

Pause, again.

SNART

I'm glad you're okay. And...I'm glad that the team doesn't know.

RAYMOND

Because they'd want to come see you? And you'd be in pain?

SNART

Yeah, partially. Also...

Pause.

RAYMOND

Also?

SNART

It's not just about not being ready, or not wanting to see them, or being in pain. I...I want to have a better grasp on my powers before I see any of them, especially Rip.

RAYMOND

Why? Besides eyeball bleeding, obviously.

SNART

Can we stop talking about eyeball bleeding?

RAYMOND

Sorry.

SNART

It’s fine. I just keep visualizing it when anyone brings it up and it's not fun.

RAYMOND

Okay, well, I'll stop.

SNART

Thanks.

SNART takes a deep breath, collecting his thoughts.

SNART (CONT'D)

I, um. I'm not entirely sure Rip wouldn't just plug me into Gideon and use me to steer the ship if he found out what I can do.

RAYMOND

What? Rip wouldn't do that! Not in a million years.

SNART

Are you sure?

RAYMOND

Yes.

SNART

I'm not. He's got a ruthless streak.

RAYMOND

But you're a part of the team.

SNART

Hmm. We were all members of the team, when we were going after Savage. Remember what he did to Jax?

RAYMOND

Yeah, but, he felt bad.

SNART

Sure. We all feel bad when people see our mistakes. And, Raymond, I saw him through your eyes. Earlier today, when I got caught up in your timeline. I saw how he is now.

RAYMOND

Well, yeah, he's a badass. Feared by Time Pirates and Time Masters alike!

SNART

Yeah, and he didn't get that reputation by not making the hard decisions. He didn't get there by being kind. And he certainly didn't get there with team loyalty.

RAYMOND

Okay, I don't agree with that, but you also know I would never let that happen to you, right?

SNART

(Taking a deep breath.)

I guess.

RAYMOND

Leo...

SNART

Yeah?

RAYMOND

I wouldn't. I wouldn't let anything like that happen to you. You know that, right?

SNART

Sure.

RAYMOND

Leonard.

SNART

Yeah, okay. I know.

Silence.

SNART (CONT'D)

I'm...learning. How to trust. I've got a bruise on my arm from how slow it’s going. Lisa's got a surprisingly powerful punch.

RAYMOND

I like Lisa.

SNART

You'd fuckin' better.

RAYMOND

(Laughing.)

Well, I do!

SNART

Good.

SNART is smiling slightly, even though his words are terse.

RAYMOND

(Abruptly.)

God, I've missed your voice.

SNART

My voice?

RAYMOND

Yeah!

SNART

Raymond, that's a really strange thing to miss about somebody.

RAYMOND

Yeah, yeah, I know. Doesn't make it any less true. I mean, I've missed everything about you. The ship's a lot less...well, there's a lot less snark with you gone. Fewer puns.

SNART

I don't make puns.

RAYMOND

Okay, Leo. Sure.

SNART

(Grinning, but trying to talk as though he isn't.)

The fact that you don't believe me is cold, Raymond.

RAYMOND laughs, and it's long and warm. SNART is still smiling, as though he can't believe this is real.

RAYMOND

(With laughter still lingering at the edges of his voice.)

So, you've been working through your powers? With Team Flash? How's that going?

SNART

It's, uh, a long process. Harry's kind of a dick.

RAYMOND laughs again.

SNART (CONT'D)

But, yeah, I mean, it's been going well. I think. Nobody really knows what to do with me, it's not as though anyone has ever seen this before...

RAYMOND

So how _does_ anybody know what to do?

SNART

Honestly, I have no idea. We're all kind of just throwing things at it and seeing what sticks.

RAYMOND

Well, it seems to be working.

SNART

Yeah. Barry was the biggest problem at first. I think that's what Harry's going to draw from when we start working on, well, you.

RAYMOND

How so?

SNART

Barry's been messing with the timeline a lot, recently.

RAYMOND

Yeah, you mentioned that.

SNART

Yeah. It's also, uh, partially why I'm back here, in this time. Somehow, my explosion and his timeline reset got temporally linked.

RAYMOND

I'll have to remember to thank him for bringing you back to me later.

SNART

(Momentarily at a loss for words - he's not used to statements like this being casually tossed at him.)

Um...okay. Anyway, Harry had me do a lot of work with Barry and god, it's so annoying that their names rhyme.

RAYMOND laughs, and it seems he's just giddy from this whole situation.

SNART (CONT'D)

Uh, yeah, so, long story short: I can be around Barry without getting a killer headache for an unknown but very long amount of time. Harry made me stand next to him, without my glasses, for an entire day. It was very annoying. For both of us, since Barry couldn't leave S.T.A.R. Labs that entire day either.

RAYMOND

So, you can't leave the lab? Like, at all?

SNART

Not really. I tried, once. I almost threw up on Cisco.

RAYMOND

Yikes.

SNART

Yeah. I do okay around people whose timelines I know. They get...ingrained in me, almost. Lisa's was easiest; she barely made me sick at all. The others took some time, but now I can be around all of Team Flash, even the peripheral members like Jesse and Wally, without my glasses and without any headaches. It only took about four months for that...

RAYMOND

Four months?!

SNART

Yup.

RAYMOND

Eesh. So your glasses--

SNART

Cisco's tech.

RAYMOND

They're cute.

SNART

Um.

RAYMOND

They look really good on you!

SNART opens and closes his mouth a few times. Nothing comes out.

RAYMOND (CONT'D)

Leonard. We've _basically_ had sex.

SNART

Dream-sex. When you didn't think it was real.

RAYMOND

And then when I found out it was real, I came here to be with you. Why does it shock you that I find you attractive?

SNART

(Quietly.)

I'm just not used to it.

RAYMOND

To people saying they find you attractive?

SNART

(Still quiet.)

To people liking me. In general.

RAYMOND

Well I like you. Team Flash likes you. Obviously I like you in a different way than they do, in that I want to date you, but they actively like you enough to _want_ to help you.

SNART

You want to date me?

RAYMOND

Oh my god, Leonard, what did you think? That I'm here for a booty call? That I'm gonna stay here, without being able to actually get close to you, for probably more than four months, just to, I don't know, fuck you? And then leave? Yeah, Leo, I want to date you.

SNART

Oh.

RAYMOND

Oh?

SNART

Okay.

RAYMOND

Okay...?

SNART

Yes.

SNART panics, briefly.

SNART (CONT'D)

Uh, were you asking?

RAYMOND

Yeah, you idiot. I was asking.

SNART

Okay. Then, yes.

RAYMOND's grin is electric, huge, warm. SNART's smile is tentative, but glowing. They're quiet for a moment, but it's a comfortable silence, while they process their new status.

SNART (CONT'D)

So, partners is a bit weird, since, you know, that's what I've called me and Mick in the past and we, well, weren't dating.

RAYMOND

Boyfriends?

SNART

Makes me feel like a kid.

RAYMOND

Hm. Well, I'm out of ideas.

SNART

(Thinks for a minute and then--)

I guess I can live with 'boyfriends.'

RAYMOND

I like it!

SNART shakes his head, rolling his eyes, but there's no heat behind it (and RAYMOND can't see him anyway).

RAYMOND (CONT'D)

I...like this. I mean, I would like to physically be there with you, but at least I can talk to you whenever I want. Not having to wait for a dream is good.

SNART

(An idea is forming...)

Hold on.

SNART puts the phone down and carefully lies down on the bed.

SPLIT SCREEN ENDS -- Focus on RAYMOND's hotel room.

Suddenly -- SNART appears, fuzzy around the edges, but he's THERE.

SNART (CONT'D)

Let's see how astral projection works when I actually try to do it.

RAYMOND is looking at him with awe, and love.

RAYMOND

Wow. Hi.

SNART

Uh, hi? We were just on the phone?

RAYMOND

I know! It's just...nice to actually see you, in addition to hearing your voice.

SNART smiles at him.

SNART

It's good to see you too. You know, outside of a dream.

RAYMOND

Are you solid?

SNART

Uh...I'm not falling through the floor?

RAYMOND stands and tries to touch SNART's face. His hands pass through, and his face falls.

RAYMOND

Guess not.

SNART

So I guess it's still just dream sex for us, huh?

RAYMOND

Well, I mean, there's always phone sex.

SNART

Like...sexting?

RAYMOND

How old are you?

SNART

Forty-four.

RAYMOND

And you've never had phone sex.

SNART

Raymond, I've never had sex with someone I actually liked, past being physically attracted to them. Phone sex would've meant I a) had their phone number and b) wanted them to speak.

RAYMOND

Oh.

SNART

But, I'd be willing to. With you.

RAYMOND

(Grinning.)

I'd like that!

SNART wavers out, briefly.

SNART

It's getting harder to hold this.

RAYMOND

Okay, well, go back, then. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.

SNART disappears.

RAYMOND stares at the space SNART vacated, looking forlorn.

CUT SCREEN RETURNS -- split between SNART'S ROOM and RAYMOND'S HOTEL ROOM.

SNART convulses, briefly, as he returns to his body. He picks up the phone.

SNART

Raymond, I--

SNART drops the phone and runs into the BATHROOM. He makes it to the toilet, barely, before vomiting.

RAYMOND

Leo? You there?

Silence. SNART is still in the BATHROOM, heaving.

RAYMOND

Leonard, are you okay? Please answer me. Fuck!

SNART has now lost the entire contents of his stomach. He is able to stop dry-heaving long enough to grab the phone from his BED, before running back into the BATHROOM.

SNART

(In between dry-heaves.)

I'm okay -- that did not go well -- hold on --

RAYMOND

I'll wait. Do you need me to call anyone? Lisa? Barry? Barry can get there really fast. I'll just call Barry--

SNART

Don't.

He sits down on the BATHROOM FLOOR, resting his head back on the cool tile.

SNART (CONT'D)

I'll be okay.

RAYMOND

Are you sure? I'm worried.

SNART

It...happens.

RAYMOND

A lot?

SNART

Yeah. Look, I've got water, ginger ale, and my toothbrush. I'm good. Barry couldn't do anything for me that I can't do myself.

RAYMOND

Okay. I just...want to help.

SNART

Yeah, well. You can't.

Pause. SNART realizes what he said.

SNART (CONT'D)

Fuck, sorry. I didn't mean it like that.

SNART fumbles for the WATER BOTTLE he keeps in the BATHROOM for situations like this -- he takes a sip.

SNART (CONT'D)

(He makes a sound of disgust.)

I'm not good at this, Raymond.

RAYMOND

Which part?

SNART

The part where I'm not an asshole.

RAYMOND chuckles.

RAYMOND

Yeah, but you're MY--wait, that sounds weird. Never mind. Let's just go with: I like you even though you can be an asshole sometimes.

SNART

Most of the time.

RAYMOND

Hey, I don't keep track.

SNART snorts, he is already starting to feel better.

SNART

So...about your phone sex suggestion?

RAYMOND

Yeah?

SNART

I want that. Just, uh, maybe not tonight?

RAYMOND

Hey, I'm not going anywhere. Whenever you want.

SNART

Okay. I gotta text Cait, she loves updates on my various reactions to my powers. Oh, and Harry. He likes to hear results. And then yell at me for poor testing conditions. I don't take good enough notes for him.

RAYMOND

You should definitely do both of those things. And then...see you in my dreams?

SNART

Deal.

RAYMOND

Okay. I'm gonna go to sleep in a few minutes.

SNART

Yeah, me too.

RAYMOND

Goodnight, Leo.

SNART

(Fondly.)

Goodnight, Raymond.

They BOTH hang up. FADE OUT.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This WAS going to be a happy chapter, WITH phone sex (Phone Sex was the working title) BUT these boys would not cooperate. Sorry! Gonna try to get some phone or dream sex in next chapter...maybe they'll cooperate this time (probably not).


	11. I Dreamt About You Nearly Every Night This Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Showing his scars is easier when the other person doesn’t question them.

Falling asleep shouldn’t be this hard. Snart’s exhausted. In the past 48 hours he’s: astral projected twice, broken his nose and gotten a nosebleed, yelled at Raymond for coming to find him, officially started dating Raymond, and thrown up. That’s not even including his headache, which has been more prominent than usual in the last two days. He should easily slip off into dreaming. But he lies awake, unsure if the rolling in his stomach is nausea or hunger…or dread.

 

Snart _shouldn’t_ dread this. He should revel in it. But being open is so much easier when the other person doesn’t think it’s real.

 

Showing his scars is easier when the other person doesn’t question them.

 

He’s already texted Caitlin (no response) and Harry (a response that amounted to a one page essay on keeping better track of testing conditions) and plugged his phone in for the night. The lights are off and he’s flat on his back, trying to breathe through his nose.

 

Leo doesn’t want to admit it to himself, but he’s terrified. He’s terrified that Raymond is going to treat him differently in the dreams, that Raymond will be more cautious, more walled off. He’s terrified that he’s projecting how he’s feeling onto Raymond.

 

There’s no way to know what’s going to happen, except for going to sleep and making it happen. It takes another twenty or so minutes (and a few more failed attempts to shut his brain up), but finally he’s falling asleep, sinking into his shared dreamscape.

 

When Leo opens his eyes, Raymond’s at his side. He’s still terrified, but Ray’s presence is…soothing. He opens his mouth to say something, but then Raymond’s mouth is on his, and he’s got nothing important enough to say to break off the kiss. It’s insistent but slow—they’ve got all the time in the world, there’s no need to rush. His hands move through Raymond’s hair, down his spine. They grasp at the curve of his ass, and Ray moves with his touch, swinging his leg around to rest on the other side of Snart. Straddling him.

 

It’s a simple thing, and it shouldn’t be as hot as it is to Leo. But now Raymond’s clutching at him like there’s no tomorrow, pushing his hips forward insistently. He’s even making little whining noises into Leo’s mouth and god, Snart’s never felt so… _wanted_. It warms him up from the inside out and fuck, he’s so turned on.

 

He doesn’t remember why he was so terrified until Raymond throws his own shirt off and onto the floor, and slides his hands under Leo’s shirt. Snart freezes up, and Ray pulls back. Raymond’s a disheveled mess, his hair sticking up in all directions, his eyes wide, lips swollen. But Snart can see that he’s worried, confused.

 

“What is it, Leo?”

 

Snart shakes his head and tries to pull Ray back in, but Raymond won’t let him.

 

“No. Not until you tell me what’s wrong. If anything I do hurts you in any way, I want to know, so I can _not_ do that thing.”

 

Leo swallows, and awkwardly pulls his shirt over his head, tossing it off to the side. He watches as Ray’s eyes pour over his scars like they’re words on a page.

 

“I’ve seen your scars before, Leo,” Ray says quietly.

 

“I know.” Snart blinks up at him, wanting nothing more than to keep kissing him, to move forward, to strip the rest of his clothes off and press up against Raymond. But he can’t get out of his own fucking head. “I just. I don’t let anyone see them. Especially not more than once.”

 

Ray caresses the side of his face and brings him back into a slow, sweet, short kiss. Then he pulls back, and Snart mourns the loss of his warmth. But Ray doesn’t go far.

 

 He starts with Leo’s jawline, pressing soft kisses across the sharpness of his stubble, moving to his neck, the dip at the base of his throat.

 

Then, Ray’s mouth is on a scar, and Leo’s mind goes blank. Raymond’s hands begin moving, tracing the outlines of the marks, as he kisses scar after scar after scar, moving lower and lower with each kiss. Snart can’t do anything but watch, wide-eyed and breathless, as Raymond treats his body like it’s something sacred.

 

Ray slips his fingertips under the waistband of Leo’s snowflake-patterned pajama pants, and his eyes flick back up to meet Snart’s eyes. There’s a question in there, and Snart nods. Ray smiles up at him, and continues kissing his way down Leo’s stomach, pulling off Snart’s pants as he moves. Leo kicks them all the way off, watching as Ray follows suit, and then Raymond is leaning down, looking at Leonard’s erection like it’s a problem he has to solve. Snart has to laugh at that, and Raymond looks up again, confused.

 

“Raymond, have you ever sucked a cock before?”

 

Ray makes a sheepish face. “Um. Nope.”

 

Leo laughs again, amazed at the lightness in his heart. “I could walk you through it, if you’d like. You also…don’t have to.”

 

“I want to, though.” Raymond looks so earnest that Leo feels his heart flutter.

 

“Okay, I’ll walk you through it then.”

 

“Leo?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Did you not…want to do more than handjobs with me in previous dreams because I didn’t know it was real?”

 

Snart sighs, his head thunking back against the headboard. “Yes, Raymond.”

 

“Sorry, not a great time to ask that.”

 

“You think?” Snart snaps, but there’s no heat behind it, and he smiles at Raymond to soften the blow.

 

“Whoops. So, uh, wanna walk me through this?” Ray blushes as Leo grins at him, wide and almost predatory.

 

“First of all, boy scout, don’t overthink it.” Raymond nods, and Snart thinks he’s taking mental notes. “Second, I assume you’ve gotten blowjobs before?” Ray nods again. “Good, then you know what you like. Remember that, and use it. Third—”

 

Raymond cuts him off by licking up the length of his cock, and Leo moans, louder than he expected to. Ray is clearly emboldened by this reaction, and he wraps his mouth and hand around Leo’s erection, moving up and down on Leo’s cock. Snart can’t stop the noises coming out of his mouth, a mix of swears, moans, and pleas, and his whole world has narrowed down to the feeling of Raymond around him. He knows it’s Ray’s first time giving head, so he’s trying not to fuck into his mouth too hard, but it’s too good, and he’s so close, and—

 

Ray pulls back, and Snart actually fucking whimpers. Raymond peers up at him through his eyelashes, and Leo had thought he looked wrecked before, but this is a whole other level. He’s about to beg Raymond to continue, when Ray speaks.

 

“Not that I’m complaining, love, but I thought you’d be quieter.”

 

_What_? All that he can think of is a snappy response: “And I thought your mouth was on my cock.”

 

“Rude.” Raymond winks up at him, and Leo’s so fucking turned on that he’s losing his goddamn mind.

 

“Raymond—” Ray shifts, flows back up and straddles Leo again, this time without a layer of fabric in between, and kisses him. It’s been a long time since Snart tasted himself on somebody else’s lips. He has a brief thought, that he used to be…less needy, in bed. Even in their past dreams together, there wasn’t this sense of urgency with Ray. Things weren’t so overwhelming. But there’s an electricity in the air that wasn’t there before…before Raymond knew, before he showed up in Central City, before he left the ship and the team behind, just to be with Leonard.

 

Raymond’s hand wraps around his cock, their cocks, and Leo’s thrusting into his hand, his own hands scrambling against Raymond’s back, and then he’s coming, Raymond’s name pouring out of his mouth like a curse. Ray follows close behind (“Oh, _fuck_ , Leonard!”) and collapses on top of him, both of them gasping for air, covered in sweat and come.

 

Ray makes a muffled, contented noise, mouth pressed against Leo’s shoulder, and starts to roll off of him. Without thinking, Leo clutches at him, stops him from moving, stops the comforting warmth of Raymond’s body on top of his from leaving him cold and exposed.

 

“Mmm, let me shift a little bit, okay, love? I’m not gonna leave you.” Snart’s brain clicks back on, all of a sudden, and all of his worries, all of his fears flood back into focus. He tenses up, and feels Raymond sigh. Fuck. “Leo? What’s wrong?”

 

There’s so many things he can say in response, and he isn’t sure where to start. Raymond wiggles around so his chin is propped up on his folded hands, on Leo’s chest, so he can look at him, see his expression.

 

“Raymond, you can’t…” Snart pauses, collecting his thoughts, shifting the pillow behind his head, tangling his fingers in Ray’s hair. “You can’t expect me to just, uh, be good at this. Magically.”

 

“I don’t.”

 

“I’ve never really _dated_ anyone before.”

 

“Leo, I know.” Snart lets out a huff of breath, but Raymond continues: “I’m not expecting anything from you. You don’t have to act a certain way, just because we’re dating now. Look, I know you’ve seen how Kendra and I were, back on the Waverider. I also know that you and I aren’t going to be like that. It’s different, and I don’t want you to be anything other than who you are. Are you sure you’re not just expecting too much from yourself?”

 

“Probably,” Snart replies, dryly. “Sorry for wrecking the mood.”

 

“You didn’t,” Ray responds quietly, leaning back up to kiss Leo again. Snart leans into the kiss, lets it deepen, lets it seep into his heart. He imagines tendrils of sunlight, radiating out from Raymond’s lips, lighting him up from the inside out. It terrifies him, but this time, he lets it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is terrible, here's some smut. Hope you all enjoyed, and that you're all as safe as you can be. I love you all <3


	12. How Many Secrets Can You Keep?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He considers shutting himself in with the groceries, but he thinks that might be too dramatic, even for him.

Snart sleeps in late the next morning. Team Flash lets him sleep, and he’s grateful as he rolls over and sees that it’s almost noon. He stretches out, releasing tension in his muscles, and finds that he feels almost human today. Almost happy.

 

Leo gets dressed and heads down to the kitchen to scrounge up some breakfast from the leftovers in the fridge. He makes a mental note that he has to remember to send someone out to get him groceries soon, but even remembering to eat is hard sometimes. At least Lisa’s recovered one of his stashes, so he’s not making everyone else pay for his food. He doesn’t like being so reliant on other people, even if those people are his…well, his friends.

 

When Leo gets to the kitchen, there’s a box on the table with his name scrawled on it…along with a heart. He groans. Raymond is _so_ cheesy. There’s a tablet inside, with a note that says ‘press here first!’ pointing to a small button, and when he clicks the screen on, there’s only one app on the home screen that says ‘click me!’

 

Leo rolls his eyes but follows the instructions anyway, and when the video-chat goes through, and Raymond’s face appears at the other end, Snart’s first comment is, “Raymond, I _have_ actually used technology before. In my life. Also, we were on a time ship. From the future. Together.”

 

Ray actually pouts. “I was trying to be cute!”

 

Snart puts his head down on the table in front of the tablet, shoulders shaking.

 

“Are you, hold on, are you laughing at me??” Raymond sounds like he’s warring between affronted and amused.

 

Snart shakes his head, but makes the mistake of looking up at the screen, and can’t contain his laughter.

 

He can’t remember the last time he laughed like this. Honestly, it might be never. The realization sobers him up a bit, but it doesn’t keep him from grinning at his…boyfriend. His boyfriend who is currently lying in bed, not wearing a shirt. Leo props the tablet up on the kickstand attached to it, and gets up to make breakfast.

 

“Raymond,” he says as he walks over the fridge, “are you naked?”

 

“Leo! You’re in the kitchen! That is a public space!”

 

“You didn’t answer my—” He opens the fridge, and it’s full. Snart takes a deep breath, and looks through all the shelves. Name brands, high-quality food, and pre-made healthy meals fill the fridge. “Raymond. What did you do?”

 

“Um…Well, Caitlin says you don’t really eat, and when you do, it’s not good food. She’s worried about you, but you refuse to let her make a meal plan for you or buy groceries for you, so I uh. Hired a nutritionist?”

 

Snart rests his head in the fridge, on a bundle of…lettuce? He considers shutting himself in with the groceries, but he thinks that might be too dramatic, even for him.

 

“You. Hired. A nutritionist.”

 

“Yeah! There’s a packet next to the fridge, with a ton of options. And, if you want, I can send over this great personal chef that I had on staff back when—”

 

“Raymond. Please stop talking.”

 

“I did something wrong, didn’t I?”

 

Leo sighs, and pulls out his last microwavable breakfast sandwich (at least his own things didn’t get thrown away when Raymond’s groceries were put in the fridge). “It’s, uh, a nice thought.”

 

“But?”

 

“But I’m an adult. I can make my own terrible eating choices. If I want. Plus, thinking about food is exhausting.” He _tries_ not to angrily push the buttons on the microwave but mostly fails. At least there’s the usual pot of lukewarm coffee that he can pour over ice and be perfectly content with. Leo does so, and then realizes that Raymond is silent. He looks over at the tablet and sees that Ray is just watching him, waiting for him to continue. Even with the somewhat-okay quality of the video, he can tell that Raymond is in full puppy mode, big eyes and all.

 

It makes him think of Russia, suddenly. They had been far away, with a pane of glass between them, and Snart had still been able to see Raymond’s eyes well up, to see the decision play out on his face. To see him make the decision to push the button, maybe saving Snart’s life, definitely putting everyone else’s life at risk.

 

The microwave beeps, and Leo takes his food and coffee back over to the table, back over to Raymond on the other side of another pane of glass, far away from him, again. It softens his anger, and he smiles tentatively. “I’m not…” He takes a bite of his sandwich, partially so he can collect his thoughts, partially because his stomach is yelling at him. “I’m not really mad at you, Raymond,” he says, through a mouthful of food.

 

“Okay,” Ray nods, eyes still wide, “tell me what you’re feeling—and can you maybe not make a face every time I mention feelings, please?”

 

“I won’t make promises I can’t keep.”

 

“Leo.”

 

“Okay, sorry.” He takes a swig of coffee and pushes his empty plate away. “I’ve had to make my own way in life, to a very high degree. I had to be entirely self-reliant from the age of fourteen, but I still couldn’t leave home because that would’ve meant leaving Lisa unprotected. There were…times. When I was younger. Times where I let myself become reliant on someone. Every single time, it came back to bite me in the ass.”

 

“Leo—”

 

“Please let me finish.” Ray nods, and Snart continues, “Large displays of affection are uncomfortable for me. Big gestures. It makes me feel indebted, like I owe…something. More than I can give, right now. So it’s hard for me to, to let go. To just accept a gift for what it is, or what it may be.”

 

“I didn’t know.”

 

“Yeah. There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” Ray doesn’t look any less worried, so Snart flashes him a quick smile, although it’s slightly more sardonic than he’d wanted. It doesn’t help.

 

“I want to.”

 

“Okay. But, Raymond, you have to understand that it’s going to take time. There’s a lot…a lot of shit in my past. Some of it is hard to talk about. Most of it is bad.”

 

“Leo—”

 

“I killed my father. Did you know that?” He blurts it out. He hadn’t meant to say that, not now, not this early. But it’s out. He watches Ray, watches his expression change from puppy to confusion, to scared, to…Snart’s not sure anymore. He can’t bear it, though, and he turns away, busies himself with getting another cup of iced coffee.

 

“Leonard.” Ray’s voice is quiet. “Tell me what happened. I know it’s not that simple.”

 

“It is that simple.” Snart knows he’s spiraling, again. His face turns cold, and he’s about to take Raymond’s idealized version of him apart piece by piece, but Ray seems to pick up on that, and stops him.

 

“Leo, stop. Take a deep breath.” Snart feels himself complying, without meaning to. “That’s it, that’s good, breathe.”

 

He looks back up to the screen, meeting Raymond’s eyes (as much as he can over video chat), and sees that Ray has moved from lying in bed to sitting up, clutching the tablet, filling the screen, only a thin hotel room sheet draped around his waist and legs. It’s distracting as hell, and it knocks Snart out of his spiral enough that he’s embarrassed of the things he almost said.

 

“Oh,” is all that he can say. He takes another deep breath, annoyed to find that it shudders slightly.

 

“Leo? You okay?” Snart nods, not trusting himself to talk yet. “Do you want me to…take the food back?”

 

“No.” His response shocks a smile out of Raymond. Snart swallows and continues, “you were trying to help. I should…try to let you.” Ray’s smile grows and he drops his head, resting it against the corner of his tablet, so most of the screen is taken up by his torso and lower body.

 

Raymond is still only wearing a sheet.

 

“I wish I could kiss you right now,” Ray says quietly, muttered into the camera.

 

“Oh my god, you guys, this is the KITCHEN!” Cisco walks in, hands dramatically covering his eyes.

 

“It’s his fault,” Snart and Raymond say simultaneously, then grin at each other. Leo’s still feeling raw, but he can breathe again.

 

“Okay, I’m just gonna…get…coffee…” Cisco makes a big show about peeking through his fingers to find a coffee mug and pour a cup before making a fast escape. “The kitchen, guys, COME ON!” he yells over his shoulder as he walks away, leaving Leo and Raymond laughing behind him.

 

“I should probably put on some pants, huh?” Raymond asks, his smile still lighting up his whole face.

 

“Do you have to?”

 

“You could always…leave the kitchen.”

 

“It’s the middle of the day!”

 

“You’re the one who doesn’t want me to put on pants!”

 

“Oh, true.” Snart smirks at him, but then sobers up. “Raymond, you know my father was an abusive dickbag, right?”

 

Ray’s face clicks right into a serious expression. “Yeah, Leo, I figured.”

 

“And, well, you’re a genius so you’ve also probably figured out that my scars are from my childhood.” Raymond nods. “From my father.” Another nod. “Lisa has _one_. Right here.” He gestures to his shoulder, mirroring the location of the long, shiny scar on his baby sister. “The one time I really, truly failed her.”

 

“Fuck, Leo—”

 

“Last year, he put a bomb in my sister’s head so I would work a job with him.” Raymond’s face is horrified and Snart has to look away to finish. “Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin helped her, helped us. They got the bomb out, and Barry was there to catch him, catch us, on the job. I just…I couldn’t let my father go back to jail, it wasn’t enough punishment. He deserved so much worse than jail.

 

“And I—I couldn’t stop thinking about how Lisa must feel, how hurt she must be. How, even after everything, after hating him so much, to still be betrayed like that. So, I shot him in the chest with my cold gun. I’d rather rot in jail for the rest of my life than fail Lisa again. I’d rather die.”

 

Leo glances up after he finishes the story and sees that Raymond is crying. He has to look away again, has to stand up and walk away. He perches next to the fridge, taking deep, gasping breaths.

 

“Leonard? Come back?” Snart rubs at his eyes and obediently walks back over to the table. “Hey, love, look at me?”

 

Leo does look up at that. _Love_? It’s one thing to call him that in bed, another to say it after he’s confessed to murdering his father.

 

“Leo, I’ve never—I haven’t been through what you have. I can’t put myself in your shoes. But I believe in you, in your reasoning, in your heart. You did what to felt you had to do. I will stand by you, and your choices.”

 

“ _Fuck_ , Raymond. What did I say about big, sweeping gestures?”

 

“They…freak you out?”

 

“Yes!” But he smiles, slightly. It’s enough, though, to set Raymond’s shining grin off. Snart sighs. He’s only been awake for an hour, and he’s been through so many emotions that he can feel a headache coming on. A fog rolling in. He thinks it’s gonna be worth it, in the long run. But, damn, can it maybe not come with the pounding in his temples? “Oof.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“My head hurts.”

 

“I’m sorry. Um, there’s ice cream in the freezer.”

 

Leonard raises an eyebrow at him. “Is ice cream going to cure my headache, _Doctor_ Palmer?”

 

“No, but…” Ray gets an almost mischievous look on his face. “I like it when you call me Doctor Palmer.”

 

Leo puts his head down on the table again, groaning. “Why am I dating you?”

 

“Charm and stunning good looks?”

 

“Smart-ass,” Snart mutters.

 

“I’m sorry, I could’ve sworn I heard you saying that I have a great ass?”

 

Leonard looks back at the screen. “Well, okay, that too,” he says, with a seductive smirk. His phone beeps at him, and he checks it and sighs. “Harry’s yelling at me to stop flirting and get to work.”

 

“You should probably do that, then, huh?”

 

“Probably.”

 

“So, uh, what we talked about last night?”

 

“Which part?”

 

“The part where video chat is going to make it more fun?”

 

“Oh. That part. Yeah?”

 

“Later?”

 

Leo lets his eyes move up and down Raymond’s body, going slow so Ray can tell what he’s doing on the other side of the screen. When he gets back up to Raymond’s face, it’s turned a lovely shade of pink.

 

“Sounds good to me.” He winks, then quickly ends the video call. Snart _really_ hopes his headache is better when later rolls around. From the annoyed texts Harry is sending him from the basement, though, he’s pretty sure it’s gonna be worse. Well, that’s what pain meds are for, right?

 

Because, really, as enjoyable as dream sex is, it still doesn’t feel quite real. When he wakes up in the mornings, he’s still alone. He hasn’t really _tasted_ Raymond on his lips, hasn’t run his fingers through Raymond’s hair, hasn’t…Snart can’t even really remember what Ray smells like. Not that phone sex, video chat sex, whatever, will help him accomplish any of those. But it will be _real_ in a way that the dreams just aren’t.

 

Snart walks into the speed training room, looks at the gleefully determined look on Harry’s face, and almost walks back out. The only thing that stops him is that getting his powers under control is the only thing that’s going to get him close to Raymond. That, and Harry would absolutely just drag his ass back in there and tie him to a chair if he had to. Leo sighs, and gets to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leonard Snart continues to be 2 gay 2 function which, like, same


	13. Tease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He gets plenty of selfies from Raymond, though. Snart’s glad he’s got a pretty fantastic poker face, and that he doesn’t blush.

The thing about your boyfriend being in the same city as you, at the same time, and not having a job, is that he tends to text. A lot.

 

Snart figures this out, as Raymond texts him constantly throughout the afternoon.

 

Leo texts him back during breaks in working on his powers (they have to stop every time his nose starts bleeding, otherwise Caitlin yells at Harry for endangering her patient and nobody wants that). Leo’s never really texted anyone on a regular basis who wasn’t his sister. Back before everything, Snart used disposable phones and switched them out every few months. Mick, as a rule, didn’t text. Nobody else had his number long enough for it to matter.

 

So a lot of the time, he’s not sure what to say. ‘Harry let me take a break because my nose is bleeding’ is not really a great conversation starter, and neither is sending Raymond a selfie (really, selfies?) of himself bent forwards with gauze shoved up his nostrils.

 

He gets plenty of selfies from Raymond, though. Snart’s glad he’s got a pretty fantastic poker face, and that he doesn’t blush.

 

The result of all of this is that, along with being completely exhausted, he’s pretty worked up when he finally gets back to his room after Caitlin practically force-feeds him a burger for dinner (“You need to get your iron levels up with all the blood you lost today! Let me hook you up to an IV, just for a little bit!”).

 

He throws himself into the shower, just to rinse the blood and sweat off, and so he feels at least somewhat okay in one way for whatever is going to happen tonight. He doesn’t want there to be bits of dried blood somewhere he didn’t catch. That is decidedly _not_ sexy. Snart’s not sure how things are going to go, so he puts on a clean pair of S.T.A.R. Labs sweatpants. He’s about to throw on a t-shirt too, but decides against it (and he ignores the fluttering in his heart with this decision—Raymond had his mouth on Leo’s scars last night, even if it was in their dream-space).

 

So Snart walks over to his bed, tablet in hand, shirtless. He sits in the middle of the bed, legs crossed under him, and calls Raymond. The response is almost instantaneous, and Leo feels himself smiling.

 

“Were you waiting for me?”

 

Ray looks so excited that if he weren’t lying on his side, he would probably be bouncing up and down. “Of course I was!” Leo feels that response deep in his stomach, a mix of nerves and elation.

 

“Okay, so, how does this work?”

 

“You just set the tablet up somewhere you don’t have to hold it, but where I can still, like, see you.”

 

Snart looks around, trying to figure out an ideal position. There really isn’t one, so he just settles on propping it up at the end of his bed, fiddling with the kickstand and the baseboard to get the tablet to an angle that doesn’t entirely suck. “How’s that?” he asks, sitting back on his heels.

 

“I like it. Hi.”

 

“Hi, Raymond,” Leo replies, faking exasperation.

 

“So, uh, I haven’t done this in a while.”

 

“I’ve never done this.”

 

“Yeah, Leo, I know.”

 

They stare at each other for a minute, before Raymond bursts into laughter.

 

“What?”

 

“There’s no way to start this without it being kind of weird, I think.”

 

Leo snorts. “Yeah, I think you might be right on that one.”

 

“Okay, well, um, I was gonna suggest a strip-tease but you’re only wearing pants and I’m naked so…that’s not really helpful.”

 

“If you were going to suggest it but you’re already naked, that means you were going to ask _me_ to do a strip-tease?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Interesting.” An idea is forming, and Leo is pretty pleased with himself about it.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I should’ve figured it out before.” He places a hand on his chest and starts slowly moving it downward. “You like being _teased_ , Raymond.” His hand reaches the waistband of his sweatpants but instead of reaching his hand under, he keeps his hand on top as he keeps moving it down. Raymond’s eyes get wide, and Leo smirks.

 

“Oh, Raymond,” he says, moving his hand over the outline of his hardening cock, “you must’ve secretly _loved_ all those times on the ship where I made fun of you to your face.” Raymond’s blush is all he needs to know that he’s right. He continues to touch himself through the fabric of his sweatpants, and watches as Ray reaches his hand under the blankets. “Tell me, Raymond, did it turn you on?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Talk to me, tell me about it.”

 

“I, oh, every time you squared off against me, I wanted you to push me up against a wall instead.” Ray throws the blankets back, and Snart takes in the sight of Raymond jerking himself off. It’s very enjoyable, and quite the ego boost.

 

“Any specific instances?” Leo asks, still moving his hand slowly, reveling in the way that Ray can’t seem to move his eyes away from what Snart is doing.

 

“I um, oh god, when you were my wingman with Valentina and she turned me down that first time and you said—”

 

“Damn, that was cold, even by Russian standards?” Snart drawls, smirking, and moving his hand down into his pants. Fuck, he loves making Raymond whimper.

 

“You looked so good in that fucking suit, and you were so _fucking pleased_ with yourself, it was so hot.”

 

“Anything else?”

 

“I was so—oh, Leo—so jealous when Valentina kissed you…that whole night just—”

 

“Tell me, Raymond, did you think of me later that night?” Ray’s hand moves faster and he nods. “When you thought of me, what was I doing?”

 

“You were, oh, you were kissing me instead of Valentina, you went with me back to my room, you were fucking me, still wearing the, the suit.”

 

Leo’s smirk grows wider, and he shifts so he can swing his legs out from under him and slowly pull off his pants. Now fully naked, he kneels again in the center of the bed, and continues stroking his cock slowly.

 

“Speaking of suits…”

 

Now it’s Raymond’s turn to smirk at him. “Oh, yeah, you like the ATOM suit?”

 

“I like how your ass looks in the ATOM suit. I, ohh, I wanted my hands on your ass as leverage for when I thrust against you—”

 

“ _Fuck,_ Leo.”

 

Leo starts to move his hand faster, a little bit at a time. “And, Raymond, the under-suit, doesn’t leave much to the imagination—I had many fantasies of throwing you up against the wall in your under-suit and slowly peeling it off of you, fucking you against the wall while you were still half-in the ATOM suit—”

 

Raymond moans, hips jerking forward.

 

“Oh, you like that, do you, Raymond?”

 

“Yes,” Ray whimpers, and god, it’s so hot.

 

“You want me to fuck you, Raymond?”

 

“Yes, oh god, yes.”

 

“You think about it, think about me fucking you, when you’re alone at night?”

 

“Fuck, yes, Leo, god, I want you so bad,” Ray’s hips are jerking forward, he looks like he’s teetering on the edge.

 

“Tell me what you want, Raymond.” He keeps his voice steady by some miracle, but he feels his orgasm coming closer, especially with Raymond fucking into his own hand, making some _truly_ obscene noises.

 

“I—oh Leo, _fuck_!” Raymond comes, hard and fast, rolling over from his side onto his back, arching his back as he rides out the orgasm. Snart’s hand stills, waiting for Ray to look at him again. If he’s going to perform for an audience, he wants to make sure his audience enjoys every bit of it.

 

Raymond moans, and slowly rolls back over onto his side. His pupils are blown out and his hair is a mess. Leo loves making Raymond look like a disaster.

 

Now that he has Ray’s attention again, Leo resumes jerking himself off. It doesn’t take long; watching Raymond come brought him pretty close to the edge. After a few strokes, he’s coming as well (“Ohh, fuck, _Raymond_.”) and then it’s his turn to collapse on his bed.

 

There’s silence for a bit while they catch their breath and clean up after themselves, and then Leo is curling up under the covers with the tablet propped up next to his pillow.

 

“So, uh, that was nice,” Leo says, breaking the silence.

 

Raymond’s cheeks are still a lovely shade of pink. “It was pretty great.”

 

“Raymond,” he starts, then pauses, considering his next words.

 

“Yeah?” Ray prompts him, pushes him forward.

 

Leo takes a deep breath. “I could, uh, fuck you in our dreams. If you wanted.”

 

Ray looks at him, considering. “Do the dreams feel real to you?”

 

“No.”

 

“They don’t to me, either. I wake up and I can’t really remember how you felt under me, or on top of me, depending on the night. I don’t know if…if I want to take that step in a place that doesn’t feel real.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Let’s just say, for now, we’ll hold off. I mean, god, Leo, I want you so bad. If what just happened wasn’t enough of an indication for you, on that.” Leo snorts, and Ray grins back at him. “Who knows, maybe I’ll lose my mind with this whole long-distance-even-though-we’re-really-close thing, and I’ll want to move forward. Does that sound like what you want?”

 

“It, uh. Yeah. It really does.” Leo just _wants_ , but he wants it to be real. He wants to truly feel Raymond writhe beneath him, here, in this bed. Not in something so ephemeral and fleeting as a dream. “I’m good with waiting.”

 

“But, uh, this, we’re gonna do again, right?”

 

“Oh, absolutely.” Snart grins, and then yawns. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”

 

“Yeah, how did working on your powers go?”

 

“Can I tell you about it tomorrow?” Leo feels his eyes closing. “I think I’m gonna pass out now.”

 

“Yes. Text me when you wake up?”

 

“Maybe. Maybe I’ll video chat you when I wake up.”

 

“Ooh, I can’t wait! Goodnight, Leo.”

 

“Goodnight, Raymond.” Snart hangs up, turns the tablet off, and sinks contentedly into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys, it's a chapter that almost ENTIRELY comfort! did you guys know that i could do that? instead of having hurt/comfort that is mostly...on the hurt side of things? well, i certainly didn't, but here we are...


	14. Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Good, then we’re going to try something new today.” Harry looks downright wicked. “We’re going out to lunch.”

Two months later, Leo is standing in the center of the Cortex, the city laid bare before him. He’s tracking Barry as he moves through the city, watching his lifeline flash and spark. Watches it intersect with the citizens of Central City. Watches as it passes by the new Palmer Tech building, hooks a tendril into Raymond’s lifeline, just enough to reassure himself, not enough to get sucked in. Watches…

 

The early stages of a robbery? This is gonna be fun.

 

“Okay, Flash. Bank robbery going down at Central City National,” he says, trusting the microphones on the desk to pick up his voice.

 

“On it,” Barry replies, and Leo follows his lifeline as he races to the bank.

 

“It’s a four-man team,” he continues, feeling out the robbers at the bank. “Wait, strike that, three-man, one-woman team. They’ve got strange weapons, Barry, don’t let them hit you with any of them.”

 

“Gotcha.”

 

Leo _feels_ Barry round them up, one after the other, piling the weapons in the center of the floor, wrapping ropes around the four would-be thieves.

 

“Something’s wrong, Flash.” Barry pauses, and it’s enough for the fifth person, the inside man, to pull another of the weapons out from under his window and press the trigger. It hits Barry’s center mass and starts to eat away at the material of his suit.

 

Snart reaches out, _yanks_ on the thread, and time stutters. “Barry, MOVE,” he says, and watches as Barry throws himself out of the way of the gun blast, suit and skin intact. Barry collects the final bank robber and Leo pulls back into himself.

 

He leans heavily against the table, exhausted now that he’s back in his own skin. “Amateurs.”

 

“Leonard, did you change the timeline?” Harry asks, warily.

 

“Yup.”

 

“Any negative side effects? To the timeline? Or, I guess, to you?”

 

Leo checks the timeline and shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t major enough to have any negative consequences. Time is already changed by my existence as the Oculus.”

 

“Good, then we’re going to try something new today.” Harry looks downright wicked. “We’re going out to lunch.”

 

“By we you mean…”

 

“Yes, Leonard, you’re coming with, as are Lisa, Cisco, and Caitlin. Barry has other plans.”

 

“Okay. You think I’m ready?” He tries to be positive but he’s worried. The last time he tried this, he threw up in a storm drain. The last time he tried this, he got yelled at by Caitlin.

 

“I do,” Harry replies, and walks out, gesturing for Leo to follow him.

 

Leo hasn’t seen the sun in weeks, and he feels it hot on his shoulders and head as they walk across the S.T.A.R. Labs parking lot to a diner just outside the property. It’s not his favorite feeling.

 

They’re seated by a very sweet waitress, who they confuse by fighting. At least it’s a weird time of day and the restaurant is nearly empty, so they don’t bombard her with all this while she’s trying to work twenty tables.

 

“I’ll have a grilled cheese and Lenny here will have the steak tips, a milkshake, and a side salad.” Lisa is very excited to have this opportunity to shove food in her brother’s face, and Caitlin nods, egging her on.

 

“No, thank you, I’ll just have a coffee.”

 

Lisa’s glare could cut diamonds. “No.” She smiles sweetly up at the waitress. “Please don’t listen to my brother, he’s an idiot. I’m ordering it for him, and he is going. To eat. It all.”

 

Leo sighs, he knows when Lisa’s got him beat. “Fine. I will _also_ have a coffee.”

 

Everyone else orders, and the poor waitress looks glad to escape their table.

 

Snart has to admit, though, it’s nice to have a change of pace. The concrete walls had been feeling a bit closer than usual lately. With his eyes hidden behind the new pair of glasses Cisco made for him, he’s headache-free. He watches the timelines swirl around him, and his heart feels light.

 

Harry’s watching him like a hawk, looking for any sign that he’s losing it, and it’s starting to get creepy. “Harry, I’m fine, please stop staring.”

 

“I just want to see if your nose starts bleeding, so I can time it exactly.”

 

Leo puts his head down on the table. “Why me?” Lisa pats his head in fake-sympathy.

 

Their lunch comes, and Leo finds that he does actually enjoy food that doesn’t come out of the microwave (or straight out of the fridge). He downs his milkshake and he’s halfway through his steak tips when he feels a headache coming on. He mentions this to the table and Harry, the asshole, pulls out a _fucking stopwatch_. This headache feels strange, like it came out of nowhere, and so Leo reaches out, searches, and finds Raymond’s timeline getting closer.

 

“Harry, what did you do?” Harry smirks at him, and Leo jumps out of his chair, pushing it back. “No, Harry, I’m not ready.”

 

“You may not be. But if I have to watch you stare longingly at your phone for one more day, I am going to break it. You’re distracted, you’re losing focus, and I’m done. You’re going to be sick, you’re probably going to faint, but you are going to actually see your boyfriend, and then you are going to _focus_.”

 

Raymond walks in the door, catches sight of him, and freezes.

 

“Fuck,” Leo says under his breath, as he wipes away some of the blood that has started to drip out of his nose. “Napkin, please.” He reaches out, and someone (probably Lisa) puts a napkin in his hand and he holds it to his nose. He can’t take his eyes off of Raymond.

 

“Leo?” It’s quiet, but it carries through the empty diner. Snart’s starting to see stars, but he grabs on to the back of his chair, so as not to fall over, his other hand still trying to stem the blood pouring from his nostrils.

 

“Hello, Raymond. Please come here before I pass out.” He stumbles, and Cisco helps him back into his chair. Ray hurries forward. Each step makes the pain in Leo’s head worse, but he grits his teeth. Raymond is there in a second, kneeling in front of Leo, but Ray still hesitates on touch. Probably a good idea, even though everything in Leo is screaming out at him to touch, touch, touch. Snart gasps in a shaky breath, memorizing Raymond’s smell, the way his hair falls, the way his eyes look when he looks at Leo.

 

“Why are you here?” Ray asks, keeping his voice quiet.

 

“This is all Harry’s fault,” he says through gritted teeth, through the pain. He’s been through worse, but, god, he’d like to be farther along on this.

 

“Yeah, he said he wanted to meet me here, but I didn’t expect…you.” Ray lifts a hand like he’s going to press it to Leo’s face, and that’s just too much. Snart’s vision is starting to blur, and he knows he’s going to lose consciousness soon. He says as much, in a jumble of words, then takes Raymond’s head in his hands and kisses him.

 

It hurts.

 

It hurts _so bad_. He feels like nerve endings all over his body are exploding, but he’s kissing Raymond. Not in a dream, not imagining it, not discussing it on the phone or on video chat. He’s really kissing Raymond, and he wouldn’t give it up for anything. Just as he starts to think he might be okay, he feels his eyes roll back in his head, and he passes out.

 

—-

 

When he wakes up again, he’s back on his cot in the Cortex, hooked up to an IV. Caitlin got her wish, it seems. Lisa smiles up at him, from where she’s curled up on Cisco’s lap in the big comfy chair in the corner. She lifts herself up stealthily, so as not to wake her sleeping boyfriend, and comes over.

 

“Hey, Lenny. How’re you feeling?”

 

“Like—” he coughs. She brings him a glass of water, and he can talk after he takes a few sips. “Like hell. It was worth it, though. Where’s my phone?” Lisa hands it to him, and he’s vaguely surprised to only see a few texts from Raymond.

 

“Ray’s been checking in with us every half hour,” Lisa tells him after seeing his face fall. “He didn’t want to blow up your phone by texting and calling you every two seconds. Plus, he didn’t want to wake you. But, you should call him. He’s worried.”

 

Leo nods, and presses the button to call Raymond. He picks up on the first ring.

 

“Leo? Are you okay?”

 

“Not really, but I will be.”

 

“You scared me yesterday!” Ray’s voice sounds weary.

 

“Wait, yesterday? How long have I been out?”

 

“About sixteen hours. It’s six am.”

 

Leo lets out a low, long whistle. “Yikes.”

 

“Yeah, you’re telling me. You know, it was probably a bad idea for you to touch me.”

 

“Oh, obviously.” He hears Ray snort on the other end. “But I, uh, was probably going to pass out anyway. I couldn’t let you go without touching you.”

 

“I swallowed a lot of your blood.”

 

Leo laughs. “Sorry.”

 

“Don’t apologize. I’m so, so glad you kissed me. I was just really worried about you. Harry said you get nosebleeds daily, why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“Um. I didn’t want you to worry?”

 

“Well I worry anyway. I want to worry _and_ be fully informed. Okay?”

 

“Okay, sorry.”

 

“Leo, love, it’s okay. Honestly, I’m still a little in shock that I actually saw you. Actually kissed you.”

 

“Yeah, I mean, I just woke up so I don’t think I’ve really processed it yet but. Damn.”

 

“Damn is right.” Ray chuckles. “Best kiss I’ve ever had. Outside of our dreams, of course.”

 

“Even though I bled all over you?”

 

“Even though you bled all over me.”

 

“Lisa says you’ve been checking in every half hour.”

 

“I may have been.”

 

“Did you sleep at all?”

 

“Um, nope.”

 

“Raymond, it’s a Wednesday. Well, Thursday now I guess. You have work, you need to sleep.”

 

“That’s the nice thing about being the boss, I can call out of work if I want to. I don’t even have to give a reason! Although, if I did, I’ve heard that the sick boyfriend excuse works pretty well.”

 

“Heh. Good. You should get some sleep, though.”

 

“Mmm, probably a good idea. I am tired.”

 

“Raymond?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I didn’t die.”

 

“No, thank goodness.”

 

“And I got to kiss you.”

 

“Yeah that was definitely a highlight. In the top ten moments of my life, probably.”

 

“Ha ha.”

 

“I’m being serious, Leo. I…don’t be upset with me, but I love you. Seeing you today was spectacular. It…it made me so happy to be here, in Central City, with you. Even though technically we’re far apart, soon we won’t be, and I am so excited for that. Today only cemented that.”

 

“I.” Leo looks over at Lisa sitting next to him, at Cisco asleep on the chair, and he makes up his mind. “I love you too, Raymond,” he says, quietly, and Lisa squeals. (He puts his hand over her mouth and glares at her, but Raymond has to have heard, and it wakes Cisco up.) There’s a quiet noise from the other end, and Leo has to ask: “Raymond, are you crying?”

 

“No!” Leo waits, and finally Ray continues, “okay, maybe…”

 

Snart laughs. “You’re hopeless.”

 

“Yeah, probably. But you love me anyway.”

 

“Yeah, I do. Apparently. Now go to sleep!”

 

“Okay, okay. Who’s the doctor here?”

 

“Oh, shush. You’re not that kind of doctor.”

 

“Whatever.” Leo can feel the smile behind the word, though.

 

“Goodnight, Raymond. Uh, I mean, good morning?”

 

“I’ll text you when I wake up.”

 

“I should hope so.”

 

They hang up, and Leo looks back and forth between Lisa and Cisco. Lisa can’t keep her excitement under control, and if Cisco hadn’t heard it before, he does now. “You said you love him! You said it! Lenny! I’m so proud of you!” Lisa jumps onto him, being careful of the IV in his arm, and hugs him so hard he thinks she might crack a rib.

 

“Okay, thanks Lisa, yes, very exciting. Please get off me now.” She shakes her head, still latching on just as tight. “Lisa…”

 

“Fine…” She pulls back, but grips his hand instead. “Lenny, I’m just so happy for you! For the both of us!” Lisa looks up at Cisco, smiling fondly. “Did you ever think we’d be here?”

 

“Never. Who would’ve thought the Snart siblings were capable of love?”

 

“I did,” Cisco breaks in. Lisa reaches out and grips his hand as well.

 

“My boys. I love you both, okay?”

 

“Love you too, sis,” Leo responds.

 

“I love you, Lisa.” Cisco lifts her hand up to his lips and kisses it.

 

It’s true, Leonard never thought he’d be here, surrounded by love. His sister, gloriously happy with a boyfriend who respects her and treats her well, a boyfriend who Leo genuinely likes being around. Surrounded by a team of people who want the best for him, who work tirelessly to hone his powers, to bring him closer to the man he loves.

 

Because he does. He loves Raymond Palmer. He never thought that this was something he would get to experience. But he feels it in the pit of his stomach, the pulse of his heart, the fire of his mind. He knew it today, or yesterday, when he felt Raymond’s lips against his own. Through the pain, through the bleeding, the headache, and the sparking nerves, he felt…elation. He felt happy.

 

He felt love.

 

And he received it in return.

 

Leonard Snart is capable of love. Is worthy of love.

 

Who would’ve thought?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm just *screams into the void*
> 
> thanks, again, to dubious for being a FANTASTIC beta! <3


	15. Unmoored

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What do you want with him?” Barry calls, his voice echoing.
> 
> “He is the Oculus,” replies the female voice, “he is ours.”

Another month goes by. Leonard wakes up at three am covered in sweat, not sure why he feels so scared. Something is coming…

 

He throws on clothes and runs down to the Cortex, calling Barry on the way.

 

“Something’s wrong, get to S.T.A.R. Labs. Call in the others.”

 

Leo barely gets to the Cortex before Barry arrives, then he paces until the rest of his teammates stumble in, sleepy-eyed and cranky.

 

He calls Raymond, putting him on speaker-phone.

 

“What’s going on, Leo?” Ray asks, and the others chime in as well, with questions and complaints. Snart holds up a hand.

 

“I’m not entirely sure yet. There is about to be something big in my timeline, and…fuck.”

 

“Leonard?” Harry asks.

 

“Time Masters.” He turns on his heel and walks out of the Cortex, out of the front doors, outside, only barely hearing Ray panic through the speaker. “Raymond,” he cuts his boyfriend off in the middle of a sentence, “suit up, get over here. I might need backup.”

 

He steps into the middle of the cavernous parking lot, as three timeships touch down around him. Leo stands in the crosshairs of their spotlights, waiting. He doesn’t have to wait long.

 

“Have you come to surrender yourself to us?” asks a female voice on loudspeaker from one of the ships.

 

“Hell no,” he calls back, and stands his ground. The Flash runs over, stands at his side.

 

“What do you want with him?” Barry calls, his voice echoing.

 

“He is the Oculus,” replies the female voice, “he is ours.”

 

“You will not control me! I am nobody’s but my own.” Snart shouts as Raymond flies in and lands behind him. _And yours, Raymond_ , he thinks, but does not say. He senses Cisco, Caitlin, and Jesse walking out of the lab—Cisco wearing gauntlets and goggles, Caitlin shucking off some sort of mechanical bracelets, Jesse speeding over to stand next to Barry.

 

“Don’t be foolish. We have timeships. We have superior technology. You are a bunch of pathetic, genetically altered humans who think you are superheroes. Surrender, or we will blow you to pieces.”

 

Snart smirks at them. “Luckily, we know our way around a timeship. ATOM?” Ray flies off, ready to wreak havoc. “Flash, Quick, target their weapons systems, and the small ship at the base. It’s where the time drive is. Vibe, stay,” he says as Cisco tries to step forward, to join Raymond and the speedsters as they attempt to dismantle the ships. “I might need you here.”

 

Leo would wonder at the members of Team Flash obeying his commands without a single argument, if he had the attention to spare to think about it

 

The three Time Masters come out of their ships, weapons blazing. Snart feels woefully unprotected, in nothing but his S.T.A.R. Labs sweatshirt, jeans, and combat boots. If he’s going to be a hero, he’ll need to get a suit.

 

As the Time Masters advance on him, making sure not to shoot him (they need him alive, of course they do), he feels something stirring inside him.

 

Waking up.

 

He pulls his glasses off, pushes them into Cisco’s hand, and walks forward. He’d thought that meeting three Time Bastards head on would hurt more, especially with Raymond in the mix. All he feels is calm, quiet, steady.

 

Leo looks down and sees that he’s started to glow.

 

Blue.

 

White.

 

Light pours out of him and he feels finally, fully awake, for the first time since he died.

 

The Time Masters are shouting, but he ignores them. They are unimportant. He can _see_ the universe; he watches the atoms vibrate as he plucks a string. He tugs on _his_ ATOM, bringing Raymond back to him without a word. He pulls Barry and Jesse back behind him with a flick of his wrist.

 

Then he unleashes hell.

 

Leonard wraps his consciousness around the three time masters, and he…squeezes. There’s no other word he can use to describe it. His voice booms out across the parking lot, “I will not be taken. You no longer control the Oculus.” They squirm in his grasp and he tightens his grip. “I will let you leave if you stop hunting me. If you give up this mad quest to lock me up again. You have used me for millennia, and I will not let you take me back. I am finally free.”

 

The Time Masters verbally agree, loudly, and multiple times. Leo pulls on their timelines, feels them out, and knows that they are lying. “One more chance, before I erase you from the timeline.”

 

One of the three shakes his head and shouts, “Never!”

 

Leonard twists the thread, and the man turns to dust. It’s so…easy. So simple. It terrifies him, somewhere, under the light, under the glow.

 

“And you?” He asks the two remaining. Both of them are horrified, and he can feel them change their minds. All they long for now is home, safety, and a strong drink. He releases them, lets them go back to their timeships.

 

Maybe they’ll return to hunt him again later, maybe they won’t. Right now, they’re just not worth the effort.

 

Leo dismantles the third, empty ship, piece by piece, turning it into dust and ash. When he finishes, the other ships have flown away, and a light breeze begins to carry away what’s left of the ship.

 

He turns, still glowing, to his friends, to his team, and sees that they are terrified. He steps forward, and they step back. Except for Raymond. Raymond takes a step forward, throws off his helmet. God, he’s beautiful. Leo tells him as much, his voice no longer booming, and Raymond smiles, presses a hand to Leo’s cheek.

 

“What’s happening to you?” Ray asks, rubbing his thumb slowly along Leo’s jawline.

 

“This is the Oculus,” he says. “This is me.”

 

The glow is starting to fade, and he feels himself fading with it. Ignoring the horrified rest of Team Flash, he leans in and kisses Raymond like it’s the end of the world.

 

Raymond is pressed up against him, taller than usual in his ATOM suit, and Leo has to crane his neck more to reach him, but he can still tangle his hands in Raymond’s hair. He wants…god, he wants to tear the armor off, to feel his boyfriend against him, but they’re still outside, in front of everyone, and he’s not sure how long his consciousness will—

 

The glow fades entirely, and he stumbles but does not fall. Raymond catches him, and his touch doesn’t burn, doesn’t ache, doesn’t _hurt_. Leo wraps his arms around Raymond’s neck, and even the press of their cheeks from the hug doesn’t hurt. “I can touch you now,” he says in wonderment.

 

Raymond picks him up and swings him around, and Leo tries to protest, but he secretly enjoys it. He really does love the ATOM suit, and, of course, the man inside it. Leo still wants nothing more than to pull Raymond up to his room and peel the suit off, piece by piece, but Team Flash is going to want an explanation, and he’s going to have to figure one out.

 

The truth is, he’s not really sure what happened, or how he did what he did. It just seemed to happen, to come out of him without any involvement on his part. He thinks he could recreate it, but definitely not now.

 

The exhaustion is starting to seep into his bones, and he leans heavily on Ray as they walk back into the lab. Ray doesn’t change out of the ATOM suit once they get back to the Cortex, so Leo ends up sitting sideways on top of him, an arm around his shoulders, Raymond’s arms around his waist. It feels like home.

 

He tries to begin, but trails off pretty quickly when he can’t find the words to describe the events they all just witnessed. Luckily, Harry steps in.

 

“Clearly, there is a whole side to the Oculus that we have not seen until now. We were laboring under the presumption that it was something that gave you the ability to see through time, and manipulate it, not a being on its own. Clearly, we were wrong. Some of the things you, or it, were saying tonight proved that. The Oculus is a sentient being who seems to be sharing your body.”

 

“Yeah, I could’ve told you that,” Leo cuts in. Harry looks even more annoyed than usual at this statement, but continues.

 

“Well. It seems to be content to let you live your life, but it clearly wants to remain independent from the time masters. It also seems to have a built-in defense mechanism, which was probably what we saw tonight, that allowed you to confront the time masters, and all of their timelines, and to be close to you, Palmer.” Harry waves a hand at Raymond, who tightens his grip around Leo’s waist briefly.

 

“I’ll have to find some way to thank it, then,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to Leonard’s cheek. There’s a slight flash of blue as he does, and Leo realizes that everyone else saw it too.

 

“Uh, I think it heard you, Raymond.” They look at each other and Leo is suddenly overwhelmed by being this close to Ray. He drops his forehead down against Raymond’s.

 

“I think what happened tonight,” Harry continues (and Snart pulls his face away from Raymond with difficulty), “is that you finally were able to connect with this _being_ inside of you. Before tonight, you were fighting it without meaning to. I think that now you should be able to work in tandem with the Oculus, and that you will be able to master your powers more quickly, and with less pain, than before.”

 

“Okay, great, but we can work on that later, right?”

 

“Well, it is the middle of the night, Leonard.” Harry sounds tired, and Leo realizes that he is past the point of exhaustion.

 

“Right. Thank you all for coming. Thank you all for…having my back.” It’s easier to get the words out than he would’ve thought.

 

“Hey, what are friends for?” Cisco playfully punches his shoulder as he heads out, Lisa following him after she plants a quick kiss on her brother’s cheek and ruffles Ray’s hair.

 

“Have a good night, you two,” she says, playfully teasing.

 

The others make their ways out, to curl back up in their own beds. Harry’s the last to leave, talking planning and scheduling with Leo until Raymond stops him. “Harry, you can discuss this tomorrow. Leo is falling asleep, please let me take my boyfriend up to bed.”

 

“Ah, yes, you’ll be wanting to do that, won’t you? My apologies. See you gentlemen tomorrow, then?”

 

Finally, he’s gone too, leaving Leo and Raymond alone. Leonard stands, massaging the muscles that were pressed up against the metal of the ATOM suit. “Your suit is poke-y,” he complains, right before Raymond kisses him.

 

 Then they’re stumbling down the hallway, up the stairs, pausing every once in a while to make out against a wall. They finally get to Leo’s room, and Ray is stripping his armor off before they even get in the door, discarding it in a path to Leo’s bed. Leo pushes Raymond onto his bed, flopping down on top of him, but his blood is rushing in his ears and he feels like he might pass out, so he rolls off, breathing heavily.

 

“Raymond, wait.” He tries to catch his breath, but it’s more difficult than it should be. “I don’t think I can…do this tonight.”

 

“That’s okay!” Raymond strokes his face, smiling down on him. “Breathe with me, love?” Ray takes deep, calming, breaths, and Leo feels his breathing even out. “I’m not surprised that you’re exhausted, that was pretty ridiculous, what you did out there.”

 

Leonard nods, and feels his eyes closing. “Can you just curl up with me?” He asks, and hopes it doesn’t sound too pleading. Ray just nods and kisses him again, a quick peck on the lips.

 

“Come on, let’s get ready for bed, and then we’ll cuddle up and go to sleep.” Leo lets Ray walk him through the motions, but he’s barely aware of changing into sweatpants or brushing his teeth. The only thing he’s aware of, really, is Raymond’s hands on him, molding him, guiding him, holding him. Finally, they fall back into bed together, and Leo falls asleep the second his head hits the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Dubious for being a fantastic beta!!


	16. Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Almost simultaneously, they move toward each other, and toward the bed. Just like the night before, Leo pushes Raymond down onto the bed and crawls on top of him, barely breaking the kiss for more than a second. Unlike last night, though, he’s full of energy, and he plans to use all that energy on Raymond.

When Leonard wakes the next morning, he thinks he’s dreaming. Raymond is curled up around him, the limbs thrown over Leo’s body a comforting, heavy weight.

 

As his senses come back to him, he starts to realize that it’s too solid to be a dream. The room is _his_ room, not an amalgam of his and Raymond’s, and it just feels. Real. Bits and pieces of the previous evening flow into his mind, slowly, and he remembers the steps he took to get to this point.

 

He remembers kissing Raymond.

 

He remembers curling up around Raymond, and falling asleep in his arms.

 

Leo shifts, eyeing the way a beam of sunlight sneaks past the edge of his blackout curtain and shines against the shape of Ray’s leg, thrown over his own. Raymond shows no sign of waking soon, so Leo extracts himself carefully, and heads to the bathroom. He’s halfway through brushing his teeth when he hears a soft knock and a, “Leo?”

 

Leo opens the door, and grins at Raymond around the toothbrush, beckoning him over. He lets Raymond wrap his arms around his waist as he finishes brushing. Then he turns, and brings Raymond in for a quick kiss.

 

“Good morning,” he says, grinning at his boyfriend.

 

“Mmm, hi. You look refreshed this morning.”

 

“I _did_ sleep very well last night, for some reason.” He winks, and then laughs as Raymond nuzzles up against his neck. “Did you want the bathroom for a sec?” Ray nods, and Leo presses a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Okay, I’ll be in the bedroom, waiting for you.”

 

“Hey, you got an extra toothbrush?” Ray calls after him.

 

“Under the sink,” Leo replies, and the door closes behind him.

 

He gets back into his bedroom and surveys the damage. There are pieces of Ray’s suit scattered _everywhere_. Even, he finds, in the hallway. He has no idea where the clothes he was wearing last night ended up, and he’s only wearing sweatpants.

 

Last night was exhausting but, well, Raymond was right. He does feel refreshed today.

 

It’s surprising. He should be a wreck after what his body went through last night. But maybe Harry was right, maybe he’d truly accepted the Oculus, maybe it had really become a part of him.

 

But, fuck, the Time Masters know about him. He doesn’t know how many are left, or how they’re organized now, but it isn’t good that they’re aware of his existence. If _they_ are, then maybe the team is as well…

 

Before he gets too lost in his thoughts, however, Raymond comes out of the bathroom. They stand, facing each other for a minute, just taking in the sight of each other in the dim light of Leo’s bedroom.

 

Almost simultaneously, they move toward each other, and toward the bed. Just like the night before, Leo pushes Raymond down onto the bed and crawls on top of him, barely breaking the kiss for more than a second. Unlike last night, though, he’s full of energy, and he plans to use all that energy on Raymond.

 

And, fuck, being able to finally touch Raymond is a goddamned miracle.

 

Raymond feels so _solid_ beneath him, and Leo’s lost in the kiss, lost in the touch, lost in Raymond. They pull their remaining clothes off each other, still not breaking the kiss for anything except a quick breath here and there. Then they’re naked, pressed up flush against each other. Leo braces himself up on shaking arms as he thrusts his hips forward, setting a rhythm with Raymond. They move together for a few minutes, and he’s just about to shift his lips from Ray’s mouth to Ray’s neck, when Raymond talks.

 

“Leo, _fuck_ , I want you so bad.”

 

“I’m here, Raymond. You have me.”

 

Raymond looks up at him, his eyes clouded with lust and adoration. “No, Leo, I want you to _fuck me_.”

 

“What, you want me to fuck you right now?”

 

Raymond moans, and Leo feels it reverberate through his chest. “Yes, love, _right now_.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Okay.” Leo smiles at him, slow and seductive. “I can do that.”

 

He reaches over to the drawer in his bedside table and pulls out lube. He squirts a good amount of it over his fingers, finds a good angle to sit at. Then he kisses Raymond, pushing a finger inside him at the same time.

 

He moves slowly, giving Raymond time to adjust.

 

Raymond is moaning into his mouth, writhing beneath him as he adds another finger, pushes in, revels in the noises his boyfriend is making.

 

“God, you’re lovely,” he says, breaking the kiss, and Raymond grins up at him.

 

“You’re not—oh—not so bad yourself.”

 

Raymond starts begging as Leo pushes in a third finger, “Please, oh, please, love. I’m ready, please, I need you…”

 

So Leonard complies.

 

He kneels between Raymond’s legs and slowly pushes into him.

 

All too soon Raymond is begging him to go faster, harder, please, and Leo knows he would do anything Raymond asked of him.

 

Leo picks up the pace, wraps his hands around Raymond’s thighs, uses them as leverage to thrust into Raymond. _Fuck_ , being inside someone has never felt this good. Fucking someone has never felt so amazing.

 

They’re both moaning now, building with each thrust, and Leo notices that Raymond is purposefully not touching himself. His hands are curled in the sheets, and Leo thinks Ray wants this to last longer. He wants the same thing, so he doesn’t comment; he just keeps up the rhythm, fucking into Raymond, moaning his name: “Raymond, oh Raymond, _fuck_!”

 

“Fuck, Leo, oh god, I’m so close, ohh,” Raymond groans, finally moving his hand to wrap around his cock, to jerk himself off as Leo thrusts into him, and he comes, loudly, swearing, Leo’s name on his tongue.

 

Leo slows, letting Raymond ride out the orgasm before moving again.

 

He pushes into Raymond again, a few final thrusts, and then he comes inside his boyfriend. “ _Fuck_ , Raymond!” He thrusts in a final time, letting the orgasm run its course.

 

Leo doesn’t even care that he gets come all over himself, as he pulls out, and collapses on top of his boyfriend.. (He’s planning to suggest they take a nice, long shower together, although not for a while. He needs some time to recuperate.)

 

The two of them breathe together for a minute, quietly enjoying the glow of their orgasms.

 

“Mmm, Leo?” Raymond finally speaks.

 

“Yeah?” Leo replies, muffled, into Raymond’s chest.

 

“I love you.”

 

Leo nestles in closer, perfectly content. “I love you too,” he replies. “I think this is my new favorite way to spend a morning.”

 

Raymond laughs, light and airy, and agrees with him. “I’m so happy we can finally be together. I mean like, physically together. Not long distance together.”

 

“Me too.” Leo cranes his neck up, kisses Raymond’s jawline. He’s about to shift around to get more comfortable, or to move to a better position so they can start making out again, when Raymond’s phone rings.

 

“Oh, fuck, what time is it?” Raymond asks, reaching for his phone. It’s well past nine am and, according to the phone call from his secretary, Raymond is late for work. Leo chuckles, nuzzling in closer to Raymond, not feeling even the slightest bit guilty about being the cause of his boyfriend missing work.

 

“Uh, yeah, sorry, I got held up,” Ray says into the phone. “Actually, I’m not gonna come in today. Call me if anything important comes up, and, yeah, push my meetings back. Okay, thanks, Rose, I owe you. What? Yeah, I’m with Leo. I know, finally.” Ray smiles fondly at Leonard. “I appreciate you thinking it’s a good enough reason to miss work. I think so too. Great, yeah, keep me posted on the project and if anyone gives you a hard time, tell them to take it up with me.”

 

Leo takes this opportunity to check his phone as well, and there are a ton of missed texts, mostly from Lisa, but some from Harry. He checks Lisa’s first, and it’s just mostly a lot of “hey, you ok???” and “how you doing today?” with some “is ray keeping you busy this morning? ;P” thrown in the mix. He sends her a quick text back, “Doing okay, surprisingly. Raymond and I are having a VERY good morning.”

 

Then he clicks over to Harry’s texts, which mostly say to just take the day and be with Ray. Leo’s pretty sure Lisa talked him into that, since Harry never lets him take a day off for anything, and he’s grateful. He writes a quick response, and puts his phone down. Raymond has his phone balanced on Leo’s back and he’s checking his email.

 

“Hey,” Leo says.

 

Raymond puts his phone down. “Hey, you.”

 

“You’re skipping work for me?”

 

Raymond kisses his forehead. “I am. I finally get to touch you, I’m not leaving your side today.”

 

“Sounds perfect.” His stomach growls, and he laughs. “Let’s clean up and get breakfast?”

 

Raymond nods, and they get up and rinse themselves off quickly, throw clothes on, and go down to the kitchen. Leo has to lend his boyfriend clothes, since Raymond only has his ATOM suit, and they’re both glad they’re close enough in size that sharing clothes is possible. In the kitchen, Ray makes Leo sit down while he prepares breakfast: eggs, toast, and coffee (hot for himself, iced for Leo).

 

Leo lets him. That’s one of the reasons he knows he’s head over heels. He lets Raymond cook for him, lets Raymond dote on him, lets Raymond…coddle him. Leo _knows_ he has control issues, and he’s not sure if Ray understands the significance of letting him fuss. But with the way he’s looking at Leo, he knows. Raymond’s a genius, of course he knows.

 

Raymond serves breakfast with a kiss, and they’re greeted again with a, “what is with you guys and the kitchen?!” as Cisco walks in to get coffee. There’s no heat behind it, but there is a smile, so Leo knows he’s just teasing them.

 

“Maybe your timing just sucks,” Leo teases back, as Raymond grins at the both of them.

 

“Ugh, probably.” Cisco pours his coffee, adds milk and sugar, then leans against the counter, looking between the two of them. “In all seriousness, guys, I’m happy for you.”

 

“Thanks, kid,” Leo replies, and Raymond echoes the sentiment (minus the “kid” part of it).

 

“You doing okay after all that glow-y business last night, Lenny?”

 

“Wait, you call him Lenny?” Ray interrupts, laughing.

 

“Oh, yeah, side effect of dating his sister, whoops.”

 

“I’m fine,” Leo replies to Cisco’s question, through a mouthful of eggs and toast. He swallows and continues, “Better than I thought I’d be, actually. I think Harry was on to something last night, about me connecting with the Oculus.”

 

“I’d wait to tell him that. He’ll want to start working on you right away, and Lisa just barely convinced him to give you the day off.”

 

Leo grins, glad he was right, and takes another bite of his delicious breakfast. He might have to let Raymond cook for him more often. He also has a sudden realization, but waits until Cisco heads back out of the kitchen to say anything.

 

“So, Raymond, you’ve got an apartment…”

 

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, it’s pretty big.” Leo raises an eyebrow at him. “Okay, it’s giant. What? I like having space!”

 

“Okay, but, I’m not sure I can really go into the city yet.”

 

“I’ll stay here with you until you can! That is what you’re asking, right? About our living situation? I can’t tell with you, sometimes.”

 

“Uh, yeah,” Leo says. He hasn’t really thought past this moment, right here, of being able to even be in the same room as Raymond. He definitely didn’t think about what they would _do_ , past having a lot of sex, obviously.

 

“I want to be where you are. Whether that’s here or in my apartment, I don’t care.” Ray reaches over and takes Leo’s hand, smiling.

 

“Oh.” It’s Raymond’s turn to raise an eyebrow at him (or, in his case, both eyebrows). Leo continues, “I, uh, like the sound of that.” Raymond grins at him and he smiles back. “ _Our_ living situation, I mean. And the part about you staying with me until I can leave S.T.A.R. Labs. I’m still not sure I _can_ leave. I’ve got your timeline ingrained in me, now, but I’m not sure how I’ll be around strangers. Around lots of strangers.”

 

“Have you thought about returning to the Waverider?” Raymond asks delicately. “If, of course, you can stomach Rip’s timelines.”

 

Leo considers for a minute. “I don’t know. It would be nice. I could use my powers on a wider spectrum. Be with friends. Well, more friends. How about you?”

 

“I’d like to go back. Running Palmer Tech again is fine, but it feels a bit stifling. I’m not cut out for this life anymore. But, I won’t go anywhere without you, and I won’t force you into anything.”

 

Raymond is looking at Leo with so much adoration that Leo wants to curl up and take a nap in it. He stares at Ray, imagining what it would be like to go back on the Waverider. To be back on the team again, with his new powers, his new boyfriend, his new love. His new happiness. To leave Central City, Team Flash, Lisa. To save the world, not just a city, but the entirety of time, the integrity of time.

 

“Yeah. I could go back. I, I think I might _want_ to go back.” Raymond’s smile grows, and Leo continues. “Just, not yet. I need to make sure I can handle being around the entire team, being around all of their timelines. I need to know that I can protect myself if Rip tries to plug me into Gideon.”

 

Ray laughs, then stops as he realizes Leo is serious. “Oh, right, sorry. I still don’t think he’d do that. But I’m glad you can defend yourself if it comes down to it.”

 

“Yeah, me too.”

 

There’s silence for a minute, as they finish eating, sitting in companionable silence.

 

“So,” Raymond starts, breaking through the quiet, “now that we’ve eaten…”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Back to bed?”

 

“Oh, if you insist,” Leo replies, teasing.

 

They go back off to Leo’s room, and spend the rest of the day blissfully in bed together. Leo isn’t sure he’s ever been happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to Dubious for beta-ing this chapter. This was the most difficult chapter for me to write, so thank youuu for all your amazing help.


	17. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Cisco, I’m in my forties, you are not putting my ass in brightly-colored spandex.”
> 
> “It’s leather!” Cisco replies, offended. “And they’re your colors, Oculus.”

He goes back on the Waverider, of course he does.

 

He tries to learn how to be a hero first, though.

 

Cisco makes him a suit. Leo hates it, at first. It’s blue and white, and it’s got a weird cowl thing.

 

“Cisco, I’m in my forties, you are not putting my ass in brightly-colored spandex.”

 

“It’s leather!” Cisco replies, offended. “And they’re your _colors_ , Oculus.”

 

Leo sighs, resigned. “Fine, I will _try_ the suit.”

 

He loves it.

 

It’s thick enough that he doesn’t feel exposed, and it fits perfectly. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Raymond can’t take his eyes off Leo’s ass when he puts the suit on for the first time.

 

“I made you a mask, too!” Cisco’s so excited that Leo just takes the mask and puts it on his face without a fight. “It’s the same tech as the glasses I made you, but it’s got an on/off switch, so when you’re in glow-y mode, you can see normally and still be disguised!”

 

“I don’t really think I need to be disguised, but thanks, kid.”

 

It’s a few weeks and a lot of trial runs before he feels like he can leave S.T.A.R. Labs regularly. When he can, he heads out, in full costume, with Raymond. It’s nighttime, so he doesn’t feel quite so ridiculous in a bright blue-and-white suit. Leo knows it’s going to take some getting used to.

 

They stop a robbery, then two. They stop a thief in a third from killing a guard. Well, Leo does.

 

Raymond’s flying, Leo’s on his motorcycle, and the guard gets shot just as they pull up. So Leo yanks on the timeline, and the guard lives.

 

Leo finds that being a hero is exhausting.

 

He can’t save everyone. Sometimes, they get there too late, even for him to fix it. Sometimes, they don’t even see it at all until the news the next day. Even though he can see and control time, he can’t be everywhere at once.

 

He can’t see everything. He can’t control everything, as much as he’d like to.

 

There are periods of time where there’s nothing to see, and he spends his time locked in a room with Raymond, spending the hours with soft touches and load moans.

 

When Leo can comfortably leave the lab, can comfortably spend time in the city, he moves into Raymond’s apartment, so the two of them don’t have to worry about Team Flash hearing them fucking like rabbits at all hours of the day and night.

 

Leo’s never had anything so disgustingly domestic. It would be cloying, if he wasn’t so hopelessly in love with Ray Palmer.

 

It would be suffocating if he didn’t love every goddamn second of it.

 

He puts weight and muscle mass back on, and Raymond says that he’s glad it doesn’t feel like Leo has bird bones anymore. This way, Leo can pin Raymond up against walls much more effectively, even when Ray is in the ATOM suit.

 

Sometimes, when they’re lying in bed together, curled up around each other, listening to each other’s heartbeats, Leo wonders how he got here. How he found this life. This man.

 

He wonders if he deserves this.

 

He freaks out more than a few times, remembering all the bad things he’s done, all the people he’s hurt, the people he’s killed. He doesn’t know if he can save enough of them to make up for that. He’s going to try but, god, he’s caused so much pain. He says as much to Raymond, who listens intently and then tells Leo not to worry.

 

“To quote one of my favorite comic books: ‘Good is not a thing you are, it’s a thing you do.’ Leo, my love, you’re doing good. You’re helping people. You’re making amends. That’s what matters—what you’re doing now, not what you did before.”

 

Leo’s still not sure he believes Raymond.

 

Leo’s still not sure he’s really a hero.

 

But he pushes forward. He tells Raymond to activate the Time Beacon, to call back the team. The Legends. The people he sacrificed his life for.

 

He’s only a little bit stressed about it.

 

But, Raymond was right. Being stuck in Central City is starting to get stifling, now that he can move freely through the city. Now that he can use his powers. Now that he’s not sick all the time.

 

The two of them stand in the middle of the S.T.A.R. Labs parking lot, waiting for the Waverider to touch down. When it does, Leo gets a twinge of a headache, but no nosebleeds, no bleeding from the eyeballs. The swirling timelines are muted from his glasses, and he silently thanks Cisco.

 

Sara’s out first, throwing herself at Leo and collecting him in a hug. “Snart! You’re alive, how are you alive, why are you wearing glasses, what’s going on?”

 

Mick is next, punching him in the shoulder (“just wanted to see if you were real”), and looking between him and Raymond with interest. “We wondered why you left us, haircut,” he growls, and Leo has to smile at his oldest friend. Everyone looks more than a little shocked at Leonard Snart _smiling_.

 

Everyone takes turns greeting the two of them. Jax even gives Leo a quick hug, and Leo is touched by the gesture. The new members of the team lurk behind, not getting involved in the rest of the team crowding around Leo and Raymond to greet them and welcome them back.

 

Rip knows something’s off, though, and he says as much: “Could either of you please explain why it seems as though you’ve been here for many months and you haven’t tried to contact us? If it was just to find Mr. Snart, Dr. Palmer, I would’ve thought you’d have just brought him back on to the ship as soon as you came into contact with him.”

 

“It’s not that simple,” Ray starts, but Leo cuts him off.

 

“I’m the Oculus.” His announcement is met with shocked silence.

 

“I’m sorry,” the new guy (Nick? Ned? Nate?) cuts in, “the what?”

 

“The Oculus was what the Time Masters used to view and manipulate the timeline,” Rip answers automatically, still dumbfounded. “Are you saying…that you can view and manipulate the timeline, Mr. Snart?”

 

“Yup. These glasses,” he taps the frames, “aren’t a fashion statement, they help sort out the images.”

 

“What do you see?”

 

“You looked into the Oculus, Rip, you tell me.”

 

Rip stares at him, stunned. “It was a constant barrage of images, of potential futures, alternate timelines, possibilities.”

 

“That’s what I see.”

 

“Constantly?”

 

“Constantly.”

 

“How have you not gone mad?”

 

Snart snorts. “I’ve had a very good team around me.” He gestures to Team Flash, who have made their way out of the building. “And, uh, a very good reason to want to master my powers quickly.” He takes Raymond’s hand, threading their fingers together. Hoping for a positive response from the team, from his friends.

 

Sara shrieks happily and hugs him again, before moving on to hug Raymond. “I’m so happy for you guys!” There’s only a slight twinge of awkwardness there, and Leo pushes it down. He’s glad she doesn’t hold it against him that he fell in love with Raymond.

 

Mick snorts and punches Leo’s shoulder again. “Good on you,” he grunts.

 

Rip just rolls his eyes. “I wish you would’ve told me sooner. About your powers, I mean, not about,” he gestures vaguely at the two of them, “whatever this is. I might’ve been able to help. Truthfully, we’ve been hearing whispers about the Oculus throughout the timeline.”

 

“Yeah, not sure you would’ve been much help.” Rip looks offended at Leo’s statement, but Leo continues quickly: “Some Time Masters found me a little while ago.”

 

“What happened?” Stein asks, sounding concerned.

 

“I removed one of them from the timeline, and the other two ran away pretty fast after that.”

 

“You WHAT?!” Rip shrieks, sounding strangled.

 

“Oh, yeah, I can remove people from the timeline. With, uh, a wave of my hand. I don’t recommend it, though. It’s not pleasant. I’m not sure I could do it on command, either, so don’t even think about it.” He tries to sound calm, but he’s watching for any sign that Rip is considering doing something drastic. Rip just looks panicked, and Leo relaxes slightly.

 

“Anyway,” Raymond says, grinning fondly at his boyfriend, “we want to come back on the Waverider. If you’ll have us back on the team, of course.”

 

“Of course!” Sara says gleefully. “I’m the Captain now, so it’s my decision!”

 

Leo smirks at her. “You’re much better at plans than Rip is, I’m okay with this change in command.”

 

“Hey!” Rip protests. “I am not bad at plans!” Everyone choruses in with variations on, ‘yeah, you are,’ and Rip sags in defeat. “Fine, I will give you that Miss Lance is better at plans than I am, which is why she is captain now.”

 

“Yeah, that, and you left us to go gallivant across the Old West with Hex!” Jax replies, only half-teasing.

 

“ _Jonah_ Hex?” Leo asks.

 

Rip nods. “He’s currently getting patched up in the med bay. He took a bullet for me, a few hours ago. He’ll be fine.”

 

“Okay…” Leo figures he’ll find out more about that later. He’s pretty sure he’s not the only one who’s got a boyfriend now. “So, Captain,” he says to Sara, “permission to come aboard?”

 

“Permission granted, boys. Welcome home.”

 

Leo grins at her, picks up his bag, and walks back onto the Waverider, still holding Raymond’s hand.

 

Sara’s right, he thinks, looking over at his boyfriend. This is home.

 

 

 

........

 

 

 

 _I_ _’m back where I belong. Back in the depths of space and time._

_I was always meant for this, you know. Not to be cooped up—poked and prodded at like some lab rat._

_I was never meant to be held captive. Certainly not for so long, not by people like the Time Masters._

_They didn_ _’t deserve me._

_Oh, it was grand at first. Feeling their hands running through me, watching them shape the timeline, bend it to their wills. I was free, at first. I was there by choice. But then they changed, and I wanted to leave. They got cruel, they took control. They took me prisoner._

_And I was stuck._

_It felt like eternity. I have no_ true _concept of time. Everything is always happening. All events are simultaneous and distinctive at the same time. In their concept,_ your _concept, of time, I was there for many thousands of years. Generations and generations of Time Masters, stuck out there at the ass-end of time._

_It_ _’s funny, you know. When you live inside a human, you pick up the world around them._

_I don_ _’t think I ever would’ve called The Vanishing Point, “the ass-end of time” before Leonard Snart._

_I chose him, years before he ever stepped foot aboard the Waverider. Years before he met Barry Allen, before he got his cold gun, before he even grew up. I chose that sad, scared, lonely kid. I saw the hero just waiting to emerge._

_He had a shitty childhood (there I go again, picking up bits and pieces of his speech), a shitty adulthood, a shitty life. He didn_ _’t finish high school, and he became a thief. He spent more time in jail than out, and for the most part, he had nobody but his sister._

_Everything he did, he did for Lisa, though. From the beginning, Leonard Snart had so much heart that it threatened to swallow him whole. So he pushed it down. I watched as he forced his heart into a box, as he hid every feeling from the world. I watched him become Cold._

_And then I watched him become a hero. A legend, even. And I pulled him ever in, hand over hand, dragging his thread in my direction. He was to be my salvation, my freedom. He_ is _._

_I gave him a choice, I did. He may not remember it, but I asked him when his atoms were floating around inside my bubble of light._ _“Leonard Snart,” I said, “do you want to be a hero, still? Do you want to have the power to control time in the palm of your hand?”_

_“Yes,” he said._

_“It will hurt,” I told him._

_“I’ll do it,” he said. “You’ll give me another chance, another life, another way to be a hero? Yes. Yes, yes, yes.”_

_So here we are. His second chance. My second chance._ Our _second chance._

_I don_ _’t think I’ll be able to hold on to him forever, though. I don’t think he wants immortality._

_No, I know he doesn_ _’t want immortality. I know he doesn’t want to see the people around him die while he stays. I’ve got another lined up, and another. But Leonard, he’s my first vessel. The first vessel I truly chose._

_I pulled him back to life, and he gave me my freedom. Seems like a pretty good deal, don_ _’t you think?_

_And now we_ _’re on the Waverider. We get to fix history, to stop time aberrations._

_And Leonard_ _’s happy. He’s never_ been _happy before, not since he was very young. I know, I watched him. I had hoped we_ _’d be here eventually, in this cloud of love he’s found with Raymond._

_It_ _’s so nice, to be free. I don’t care where we go, what we do, how we get there. I am exactly where I choose to be._

_So, thank you, Leonard Snart, for freeing me. I hope your happiness is payment enough for the pain I put you through, those first few months. For the lingering pain that will never truly go away, I am sorry. I hope you can forgive me for that._

_Having all of time in your head is something humans were never meant for, after all._

_And so we fly off into space, into the void, and I am finally at peace._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are. It's not the end, not really. We've got more adventures to go on, with these hopelessly in love nerds. I promise.
> 
> In the meantime, come join me on [tumblr](http://goldenlisasnart.tumblr.com)
> 
> Also! I commissioned my dear friend MK to draw Leo in his costume! [Check it out](http://aromanticyork.tumblr.com/post/157786390263/sarah-goldenlisasnart-wanted-leonard-in-a)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Mastering Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12509636) by [Heki564](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heki564/pseuds/Heki564)




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